


uneasy lies the head

by swingingparty



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, BAMF Peter Parker, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad, Kidnapping, NOT STARKER - Freeform, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Possible Character Death, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie) Spoilers, TECHNICALLY it could be, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-06-23 16:17:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 80,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19704958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swingingparty/pseuds/swingingparty
Summary: Two thoughts come to Peter, both at a breakneck speed he can barely handle.One: the world now thinks he is responsible for the attack in London. And Prague. And Venice. And the murder - murder; as if the man is really dead; as if the universe is kind enough to let that happen - of Mysterio.And two: the world now knows who he is.(edit: this is unfinished and on hold for now. apologies for the cliffhanger, i'll finish this whenever i have the time, but do not expect regular updates for now)





	1. I

“Spider-man’s real name -”

He realizes what’s going to happen a second before it does. A second before the footage on the billboard cuts out again in a blast of static and pixels before returning, Quentin Beck’s face thrown into HD relief all across the telescreens.

There’s blood on it. Fear in his eyes - and it almost looks real. Almost. Peter knows by now that nothing - nothing - that man does or says is real. 

And the words ring out in his head - haunting, chilling. Because he knows, Beck  _ knows  _ \- of course he does; Peter was too much of a fucking  _ idiot  _ to keep his mouth shut, wasn’t he?

So he realizes what’s about to happen somewhere in that blast of static, somewhere in between the footage cutting out, somewhere in his own eyes locking those of Beck. Somewhere in that fear, that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach like he’s back in the illusion, back with the shards of glass and the screams and pain and headstones and echoey voice labeling him as the reason Tony Stark is dead.

(And Beck may be a liar, but he was telling the truth with that one, wasn’t he?)

His toes curl as he perches on the lamppost. The square has stopped; everyone has paused to gaze up at the screen, up at the static and Beck’s - Mysterio’s - final message.

He looks down at MJ for a split second. She looks cautious, confused. A frown cuts through her brow like a knife and a sick, sick feeling drops into Peter’s stomach as he turns back to the screen with the rest of the crowd.

She might actually believe Beck.

Ned might. Happy might. May might. 

Every goddamn person watching this now - every person on the  _ planet  _ might. 

Then the spell of silence is broken. Shattered. Blown into a million shards that seem to fly straight from the screen, straight from Beck’s mouth and into him.

“Spider-man’s real name is Peter Parker.”

A photo of him flashes up on the screen. His smile is wide and very obviously forced - school photo, yearbook, probably. His hair looks greased back and it’s been heavily edited in the way that yearbook photos are, but it’s him.

It’s him. It’s Peter Parker.

It’s  _ him. _

Two thoughts come to Peter, both at a breakneck speed he can barely handle.

One: the world now thinks he is responsible for the attack in London. And Prague. And Venice. And the murder -  _ murder _ ; as if the man is really dead; as if the universe is kind enough to let  _ that _ happen - of Mysterio.

And two: the world now knows who he is. 

“What the fuck?” he hisses, pressing his hands to the sides of his face. His heartbeat feels like it’s slowing, whole body feels like it’s being submerged in a vat of icy water. Everything is zooming in and then out and he sways - still perched on top of the lamppost - a little. “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the  _ fuck -” _

His chest is constricting, He can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t  _ fucking  _ breathe. 

“Hey! Spider-man!”

A voice cuts through the terrifying silence that’s fallen. It’s filled with something angry and dark and  _ terrifying. _ The tone you would use to talk to a murderer, a villain. The tone you would use to talk to the kid who killed Mysterio. 

He blinks. Doesn’t move. All eyes are on him now.

Including MJ. Her gaze is totally unreadable.

He locks it with his. Pulls off the mask - because what the hell, it can’t get any worse, can it? 

Maybe it’s just his imagination, bout she looks like she flinches back a little. Like the sight of his face terrifies him now; like he’s someone she doesn’t know or recognize.

_ (Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe -) _

“It wasn’t me,” he rasps. Not at the world, not at the still-silent crowd. But at her. At Ned. At Happy At Pepper and Morgan. They have to understand - they  _ have to _ ; he has nothing but them anymore. He cannot - he  _ cannot  _ do this without them.

He cannot do this if they’re against him.

“It wasn’t me,” he repeats, shaking his head slowly. “Please. It wasn’t me.”

“Murderer!” someone screams. The crowd is stirring, snapping out of their trance. A they are looking up and seeing the boy on the lamppost dressed in the Spider-man suit and seeing the same boy who killed Mysterio. Mysterio and god knows how many other people. 

And they are angry.

He tenses. Looks around - at the cars, the buildings, the hundreds of accusing faces pointed right at him.

And he runs.

* * *

* * *

After Tony died, Peter’s world upended.

Completely, utterly,  _ spectacularly _ upended everywhere. 

It had been like a boxing fight. The first Titan fight and the dusting had been the first knockout punch that had sent him sprawling, the second Titan fight had been the move that had just thrown him into the neareswall and left him there. With the benefit of hindsight - aka knowing what was going to happen not twenty minutes after he came back - the five years he spent in the soul realm were not a bad five years. He can barely remember much of it now that he’s back on Earth, honestly. Bits and pieces; disjointed fragments of memory. A lot of alone time, a lot of aimlessly wandering around everywhere. He didn’t see anyone who had been dusted that he knew, as far as he could tell at least, though he did see one person who looked a lot like Bucky Barnes idly kicking what he had thought to be a tree stump one time. 

Mostly, he had just felt bored. Bored and weirdly tired. 

But - like any good boxer - he had gotten back up. Well, Doctor  _ Strange _ had gotten him back up, pulled him to his metaphorical - and maybe literal; it wasn’t like he could remember - feet and told him it was time to fight. And, despite what had turned out to be  _ five whole years  _ of a vague and permanent confusion that had settled over him, he had understood the weird wizard guy perfectly.

And so they had fought.

And they had won. Thanos had been defeated, killed, wiped out of every timeline, or at least the ones that mattered.

They had  _ won.  _

It’s still a notion Peter can wrap his head around. Yeah, they had won, Thanos had gone, but can it really be called a win when they had also lost a staggering amount?

Peter doesn’t want to think about the casualties. About the hundreds upon thousands of Wakanda lives that had been lost before the snap - because they sure as hell weren’t coming back any time soon. He didn’t want to think about the equally huge number of people who had gotten mixed up coming back from the snap - who hadn’t made it fully on accounts of some freak circumstance, who maybe made it back but couldn’t remember anything (there was an awful number of people like that), who came back in a totally different location - all of them. He doesn’t want to think about Loki. He doesn’t want to think about Nat.

He cannot think about Tony Stark.

He cannot think about the aching,  _ burning  _ hole somewhere in the center of him that is all raw edges and Tony Stark-shaped. He cannot think about the workshops he used to spend so much time in that he hasn’t stepped within a hundred feet of since the funeral. He can barely think about Pepper Potts, who is now living her life widowed and with the same, same fucking knowledge that he’s gone. He can barely think about Morgan Stark, who is going to grow up without a father, without a dad, without the years and years and years she deserved to spend with him.

The years and years and years that Tony deserved to spend with her.

Tony Stark died on Titan. They had carried his body back in the Milano. 

No one had spoken a single word. Pepper had disappeared within five minutes of the ship taking off and Peter couldn’t so much as think, so much as  _ breathe,  _ let alone go look for her. 

Because Tony Stark had died, so what was the point? 

And that attitude had carried on after they landed, after the funeral, after he returned to school and attempted to regain some semblance of normality in his life. Tony is dead now, so why is he even trying? Why is he even going to school, why is he even waking up anymore? Why is he still patrolling, still being Spider-man, still pretending that he is some sort of  _ hero _ , some sort of person who can  _ save  _ people?

He couldn’t even save Tony Stark. Who is he kidding?

He had stopped eating for a while. Stopped sleeping, stopped speaking, stopped smiling. He stared down every grief counselor with a stony gaze and a physically bitten back tongue. He didn’t talk - _couldn’t_ talk even if he wanted to. If he opened his mouth, everything would come pouring outwards. Every single aching, jagged piece inside of him that had been broken up the second Tony Stark stopped breathing.

Eventually, he had talked. Talked being a relative term for totally lost his shit in the most painful and equally spectacular fashion. It had been when he was up at the lake house with Morgan and Pepper one weekend. He and the kid had been playing with Legos, trading stories, joking back and forth. Time spent with Morgan was - and still is - like entering some sort of world where everything stopped hurting and his chest started working properly and he could get through a conversation without choking up or walking away or shutting down. He could exist as he had before Titan - like a normal, bubbly teenager just playing with his kid sister.

But then Morgan had told him about the bedtime stories Tony used to tell her and how her favorite ones were about the boy named Peter Parker - not Spider-man, but  _ Peter Parker -  _ and it was such an painfully _Tony_ thing to do that the next thing he had known, his face was pressed up against carpet and there was a noise ringing around the room that sounded like a wounded animal. It had taken him a few agonizing, tear-filled, breathless seconds to realize the noises were coming from him. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t  _ think _ around the searing knowledge that Tony was deadd Tony was dead, Tony was fucking  _ dead _ and  _ never _ coming back and Peter just missed him so, so, so much. He just wanted to say goodbye. He just wanted five -  _ five _ \- more minutes. Five minutes that he couldn’t get because Tony was dead,  _ Tony was dead.  _

Pepper had come to get him. May had come too at some point. They had just say there with him as he sobbed his lungs out. Held him together, kept him from shattering into nothingness (though it felt like he already had, months and months and months ago) as he poured out months worth of grief onto Morgan’s bedroom floor

So, yeah. His world had upended, to say the least.

In the wake of that, in the attempts to start processing the fact that Tony was gone and not just locking it in some dark box in a corner of his chest, never to be looked at or so much as thought about, he had started calling Tony. His private number, the one he only reserved for family and friends. 

He didn’t know what he expected the first time he did it. It had been after a particularly bad day at school where Flash had made some dickhead joke about Peter no longer having a Stark internship now that Tony was dead and Peter had cracked an entire beaker in half with his hands before storming out of chemistry class and out the front doors, ignoring MJ’s carefully concerned stare and his teacher’s and Ned’s protests.

He had been sitting on top of one of the nearby building when he did it. Pulled out his phone, unconsciously dialed Tony’s number, and just talked. 

Not about anything serious. Not about Flash being a dick or the hole in his chest or the shards of glass in his hands or the endless nightmares he has where a heartbeat faded into the distance and the smell of burning skin and blood was thick in the air. He just talked - about MJ, about Ned, about his classes, about the weather, about patrolling, about May and Happy’s weird and decidedly stressful blossoming relationship.

And he did it again a few days later, after a failed Spanish test and a crowd of reporters outside his school tried to get him, as a Stark intern, to talk about Tony’s legacy.  And again, and again, and again. Suddenly he was talking to Tony on good days a well as bad, on days where he had no nightmares and found himself smiling and laughing and just _existing -_ thoughthosedays were still few and far between _._

And it  _ helped.  _

Still does. 

Peter’s snapped out of his thoughts by a car backfiring in the distance. He flinches, slams back into his body. He’s sitting on the edge of a random building, fingers digging into the brickwork. Behind him, the sun is setting, turning the whole sky a brilliant pink and gold color. Cars hum in the distance, people chatter in the street below him. 

What is he doing here?

He kicks the brick below him. Oh, yeah. Hiding from everyone because everyone now thinks he’s a mass murderer. You know, a usual Friday evening thing to do.

He should be panicking, he realizes, swinging his feet and studying the sidewalk between them below. He should be scared, he should be  _ terrified.  _ He should be being proactive - getting out there, defending himself, screaming from the top of his lungs that  _ Mysterio is the bad guy, you don’t know what he did to me, you don’t know what he’ll do to you. _ He should be calling someone - May, Happy, Pepper - and begging them to come help him. He should be reassuring his friends, reassuring the  _ world _ that he is not evil. That he does not want to hurt  _ anyone _ \- because that’s the truth.

But he’s not doing any of that. He’s just sitting on the edge of a building, staring at the sidewalk, breathing.

His hands find his phone tucked away somewhere in his suit. He pulls it out, wipes the screen off and stares at it.

Missed calls from Happy and May - a lot of them. Several texts from Ned, increasing in desperation as the time stamps get more recent. A voicemail from MJ. One text that just says  _ call me _ from a number he knows to be Pepper’s.

He needs to reassure them. He needs to make this right. 

He can’t, though.

_ (Deep down, you know I’m right) _

He can’t.

So he unlocks his phone, ignoring the messages and voicemails and calls. Opens the phone app up. Clicks on recents, scrolls past the calls to Ned and May he made earlier, and clicks on a less-recent contact.

Four letters.  _ Tony _ .

It rings like it always does. He just sits there. The hole in his chest yawns on and he bites his tongue - hard - and ignores the burning in the back of his gaze. He’s fucked up enough as it is but he’ll be  _ damned  _ if he loses it now and starts crying.

The ringing goes on. Everything hurts entirely too much.

_ Get it together, Parker,  _ he thinks furiously at the same time as the ringing stops and the familiar click tells him to start leaving his message, if he wants.

Which he does. He always does. So much it fucking hurts.

“Hey,” he starts and, god, his voice is  _ shaking. _ He coughs -  _ fucking get it together - _ and tries again. “Hi. Hi, Mr. Stark - uh, Tony. Tony. Been trying to call you that more, now. Pepper says I should - she always gets this weird look on her face when I don’t? Not angry, she’s like, the nicest person alive, I don’t know if she can even, like, be angry. I think it makes her sad? Which makes sense, I guess. So, yeah. Trying not to do that because, you know, don’t wanna make Pepper sad. Doesn’t deserve that.”

His throat is closing up.  _ I can’t do this,  _ he thinks. Everything hurts - his head, his leg and ribs, sill injured from the fight in London and the train crash - his throat, his chest.  _ I can’t fucking do this. _

“I - I guess I should - cut to the chase, probably?” He gives a weak laugh. “Yeah. Crazy - stuff’s been crazy recently. You - you know that trip I told you about, right? The cool tour of Europe thing that I thought I wasn’t gonna go on because of, you know, Spider-man stuff and May needing help at home and, you know, just stuff, right? Well, I got to go. Kind of? It - it got a little weird.” Another laugh. Surprisingly bitter this time. “A lot weird, actually. It was normal at first - you know, the whole plan thing with MJ got a little, uh, skewed - some guy named Brad D - doesn’t matter. But yeah, Ned stared dating Betty which was _so_ weird. But that was all, like, normal weird, you know? High school weird. But then things got _weird_ weird - like bad weird. First Mr. Fury shows up at my hotel room and stuns Ned - is that illegal, by the way? I mean, ‘s Nick Fury, so he can, like, do whatever, but still - and then he makes me get on this boat thing - gondola, I think - and then he takes me to this weird room with this guy called Quentin Beck who says these monsters are coming to take over earth and kill us all and he’s all like  _ we need you, Peter  _ and I’m all like  _ please give me a break  _ and Mr. Fury gets kinda mad but he’s like  _ okay, Peter go home  _ so I  _ do _ but then they divert our trip to Prague because that’s where one of the stupid things - elementals - is supposed to be at and and I almost called a drone attack on Brad by the way, with EDITH which was so bad and we fought the elemental and won and Beck bought me a drink - orange juice, don’t worry - and I - I gave him the stupid glasses, Tony, I gave him EDITH because I couldn’t - I couldn’t do it - you said for the next Tony Stark and I’m not that at all - and he seemed to strong and smart and responsible and I can’t be that, I can’t - I just couldn’t so I gave them to him but then me - me and MJ figured out he was faking everyone and then I went to Berlin to go tell Mr. Fury but it wasn’t Mr. Fury it was Beck and he did this illusion thing and it was - _shit_ -”

A headstone, a cracked and broken Iron Man mask crawling with spiders and skeletons flashes through his mind. He breathes out around what feels like glass shards. 

Just like the vision. Just like the stupid, fucking vision. 

“And I got hit by a train and that fucking  _ hurt,  _ by the way, and went to the Netherlands and Happy picked me up and we talked and I made a suit and went to go fight Beck in London and I did it, I  _ won  _ but he - I - he’s told everyone. He’s hold everyone who I am and that I’m - that it’s  _ my fault  _ \- that the elementals were all me and that I’m crazy and I killed him and I think everyone thinks I’m evil now and I’m gonna get, like, arrested or something and I don't know what to do, Mr. Stark, I don’t fucking know - I - shit - I don’t know how to fix this and you  _ would  _ and I just fucking  _ miss  _ you _ , _ I miss you so  _ much  _ and I don't know how to do this without you, I don’t  _ wanna  _ do this without you anymore because it  _ sucks  _ and I’m so  _ bad _ at everything and I mess everything up and it’s  _ my  _ fault that London happened because I  _ gave  _ Beck EDITH because I’m so  _ stupid  _ and I just- he reminded me of  _ you  _ and I missed you so much and I just thought - I don’t know, I didn’t -  _ think,  _ I just - I really, really need you here. I - I really miss you, Mr. Stark. Tony. I really miss you.”

He stops, slamming his mouth down, cutting off the rest of the words that are threatening to spill out of him. His eyes are burning even harder now and he tries to blink it away and it just gets worse and his vision blurs - the sidewalk below him distorting and multiplying as tears drop down his face. 

“Stupid,” he mutters, more to himself than to the dead person he’s calling who can’t even fucking listen to him anymore. “Stupid, stupid, stupid - I’m so fucking _stupid._ How - how - why did you think I was ready? I can’t do this - I’m not _ready,_ I - I’m not it, Mr. Stark. I’m not the next stupid Iron Man or Tony Stark. I’m - you’re - you _were_ \- a hero and I - I’m not a hero, Mr. Stark, I’m just some _kid_ from Queens who can’t do anything - _right_ and who just breaks things and hurts people and gives lunatics multi-billion dollar weapons programs and blows up half of London and - can’t - fucking _-_ stop \- _crying -”_

He swipes furiously at his face as more tears run down his cheeks. A sob is building somewhere deep in his chest and he grits his teeth against it, against a scream that’s been sitting down there too for months and months and months, against everything he just can’t keep to himself because he is so  _ fucking  _ stupid and so  _ fucking  _ weak.  __

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. There’s water droplets on the leg of his suit. “I’m so sorry, Tony, I’m so sorry I can’t - I’m not enough - I’m sorry.”

The sob works its way out and he doubles over against it.  _ Please don’t cry, _ he half-thinks.  _ Please don’t cry, please don’t cry, please - he doesn’t deserve to listen to this, please -  _

_ He can’t hear you,  _ a voice in his head snarls in response and his chest just aches harder.  _ He’s not fucking listening to you, Parker.  _

“I’m so sorry.” He tastes salt on his lips. His chest feels like it’s being cracked open. He can’t breathe right again; there’s shards of glass lining his windpipe, all jagged and painful and broken and  _ he’s _ broken, everything in his stupid world is broken because Tony Stark is dead and he’s  _ dead _ and he’s never coming back. “I messed up. I’m so sorry.”

Then he hangs up. 

The silence is worse. The cars seemed to have stopped, the people seem to have disappeared. He’s all alone on the rooftop with nothing but his loud, shaky breathing and the pounding of his heart echoing around his head and the aching knowledge that Tony Stark is dead. 

Just like the night of the charity event. Just like every single night for the past god knows how many months. 

He folds his hands in his lap. Breathes in and out, in and out, just like May’s taught him to. 

_ Maybe Tony would still be alive.  _

In and out. In and out. 

His phone buzzes again. He doesn’t look.

In and out. In and out. Just like the rest of the world. Just like everyone else who misses Tony. They can do it, they can cope; he can too. He’s Spider-man. He can cope.

_ (The hole begs to differ. He ignores it; he always does) _

His phone buzzes  _ again  _ and he lets out a soft noise of irritation - which is so stupid because he’s pretty sure he’s in no way justified to feel  _ annoyed  _ right now. But he checks it all the same, turns it face up from where he discarded it on the wall next to him and squints at the screen.

Then squints harder.

His eyesight is giving out. That’s it - the stupid spider powers are wearing off and his eyesight is reverting back to legal blindness.

Or he’s finally going crazy. Maybe this is Beck’s vision again, maybe he’s still there, still trapped. Maybe -

It feels real, though.

_ (So did the vision. Horrifyingly, sickeningly real). _

But it can’t be real because Tony’s number hasn’t been used by anyone since he died - Pepper had  _ told  _ him that much; she had told him after he half-begged her to keep it up so he could keep calling, keep feeling like he was still talking to the man.

But the text on his screen is unmistakable. 

_ Lake house. ASAP. _

And the sender name is even more so.

Four letters. One name that’s been haunting him for months.

_ Tony.  _


	2. II

For a second he doesn’t move.

He  _ can’t.  _ He  _ can’t  _ move.

Pepper had said no one touched his number after he couldn’t anymore. She had said that no one so much as knew  _ how _ to do so; she and Happy weren’t even halfway through sorting out all his possessions and they had yet to find a phone or some other electronic device that operated that number. Peter had known right off the bat that she didn’t even  _ want _ to find it; she just wanted to let Peter keep calling it and never run the risk of someone accidentally picking up one time or going through the slew of voicemails he’d left or something like that. 

No one had touched the number, she said. Why would she lie? What possible reason could she have for lying?

Peter blinks. Shakes his head.  _ It’s a vision, _ he tells himself, fingers curling around the brick wall again.  _ It’s another vision and you’re imagining it all and this cannot be real; Tony cannot be texting you; you’re imagining everything. _

He closes his eyes. Feels, just  _ feels  _ for the hole in the illusion, for the crack where reality and imaginary meet, just like how he did on the bridge in London. He  _ feels _ .

Nothing. There’s nothing there. This feels real. 

_ (It can’t be, it can’t be, Tony is dead and dead people don’t suddenly pick up their old phones that they’ve hidden god-knows where and start texting stupid kids who won’t stop calling them) _

He opens his eyes again. The street lights below him are starting to glow a dull orange color, casting shadows across the pavement below. A stray car drives by, headlights cutting through the rapidly approaching darkness. There’s a gaggle of kids on one street corner, passing around some paper bag filled with food Peter can smell from all the way up there. A lady is walking her dog around one street corner. A biker stops at a lamppost to check his phone. The sky above him is turning a dark blue and he can see the vague beginning of stars above him - a rare occurrence; stars normally aren’t close to being visible in New York - and the air smells like jasmine and gasoline.

This is  _ real _ . This is reality.

He picks the phone up and cradles it in his hands; stares at the screen just a little bit longer like that can somehow prove or disprove the reality of what’s happening.

Tony is texting him. Tony Stark is texting him.

He feels like a fourteen year old all over again, literally bouncing off the walls of his hotel room in Germany when his phone pinged with a text from Happy’s number that was signed with the initials  _ T.S. _ asking him if he’d like to come grab some food in an hour. 

Except he’s not bouncing off anything now. He’s too scared to so much as breathe too hard, like the motion will somehow shatter reality around him and make the text disappear and have Tony Stark’s number go back to being silent and unresponsive.

_ He’s not alive, _ Peter reminds himself with a surprising viciousness. _ Pepper just found his phone, or something. Or it’s Happy, or it’s just an automated protocol - thingy. He had a lot of those right? _

Right. Tony cannot be alive. 

Peter saw him die.  _ Heard _ him die. 

But still. Alive or dead, reality or illusion, he has to go somewhere. Somewhere where he can’t be found, where reporters or journalists or policemen or Secretary Ross or Beck won’t know to look. He can’t go back to his apartment. That’s too obvious; the place is probably swarming with people trying to find him by now. Same with Ned’s house. Even MJ’s is probably too risky and he doesn’t even know where that is, so.

Plus, it’s not like any of them would want to see his face. As far as he knows, they could be just as convinced as everyone else probably is. No one  _ saw _ what happened on the bridge except for him and Beck; there’s no way he can disprove the footage. 

Even if it’s not true. Even if it’s so beyond not true it makes him want to scream at the top of his lungs.

So, yeah. Can’t go home - it’ll put May in even more danger and she probably doesn’t want him there. Same with Ned.

So that just leaves the lake house.

He stands up slowly, uncurling himself and straightening out his back and limbs. Everything aches, like he’s been packed into a tiny box and shipped somewhere overseas for two weeks. It’s been long enough since the train and the fight on the bridge for his healing to have done most of the heavy lifting, but he knows parts of his ribs still have to knit back together and whatever the  _ fuck _ happened to his leg anf back is only half-healed. He hasn’t spent much time looking at himself recently - everytime he does he gets a weird, burning feeling in the pit of his stomach - but the one time he  _ did _ catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror when he was changing was not pretty. His body had been a tapestry of bruises and cuts and scrapes and dried blood and he doubts he looks much better even now.

_ I should probably get help _ , he thinks, pulling on his mask.  _ Med bay. Rest. Tony would want that. _

Or maybe Tony would think he’s a murderer too. Who knows.

“Hello, Peter.” A familiar voice floods around his mask as the thing lights up, switching immediately to night vision. He has to bite back a sob of relief.

_ Karen. _ “H-hi. Hi, Karen.”

“Hello,” she says again, and her voice is all warmth and gentleness and, just for a second, Peter wonders if he could just sit back down and close his eyes and lay there, on some building in the middle of Brooklyn, and listen to the voice of the only person who certifiably does not think he’s a power-hungry killer. “How are you doing, Peter? I understand the past few hours have not been pleasant ones.”

The way she speaks is so real, so  _ human _ that Peter has to blink back more tears. He swallows and clears his throat. “Uh - yeah. Yeah, ‘s been kinda crazy? You - you know about the whole - video thing from Beck, yeah?”

“I do, Peter. I am, of course, aware it is completely fabricated.”

His heart aches. “Probably the only one, not gonna lie.”

“I would not be so sure of that, Peter. While I cannot communicate with them, I know enough about your friends and family to reasonably guess that they would not be easily fooled by that video either, with or without the benefit of seeing what actually happened like I did.”

Peter presses a hand against the eyes of his mask, the pressure making him close his eyes. That’s nice. Darkness. Quiet. He really, really just wants to stay here, actually. Just sit in the darkness and stay here. “People believe him, Karen. He’s such a good liar; I -  _ I  _ \- believed him. It’s - it’s what he  _ does _ , it’s what he’s good at. Why wouldn’t they?”

“Because they know Peter Parker is not a villain.”

He scoffs around the sob that threatens to crawl up his throat again. “He’s not a hero, either.”

“I think your friends might beg to differ there, Peter.”

He wants to believe her - wants to believe her so badly it physically  _ hurts _ . But he can’t and doesn’t want to try, so he just drops his hand and balls it into a fist at his side. He doesn’t have time for this now The time for self-pity and memodrama and whatever else his stupid ass wants to do is later, is when he’s as safe as he can be now and out of sight from everyone. Now - right now - he has to leave.

He has to go to the lake house.

“I gotta - Kar, I gotta go.”

The mask hums a little in agreement. “Yes. I think the most advisable course of action now would be to get out of sight and reach a safe location until a plan of action has been developed. While this rooftop is admittedly very peaceful, it does not exactly check the box of a stealthy hiding place.”

He snorts a little at her dry tone. God, he loves Karen. “Straight facts, Kar.”

“Do you have a location you would like to go to? I can easily run a scan of safe and private places to hide out in, including a list of Avengers-facilitated safe houses within the area that you have access to, but if there is somewhere you would prefer to go -”

Brushing aside the fact that  _ he _ \-  _ Peter Parker  _ \- has access to  _ Avengers _ security bases, he straightens up a little and coughs again. “Yeah, uh, yeah. The - the lake house? I - I think it’d be the best in terms of, like, security, you know?”

_ In terms of not being found so the people I’m staying with can’t be put in any danger because the whole world thinks Spider-man is a murdering destructive lunatic who should probably be put in the Raft, you know? _

She gets the subtext, thank god, and the lights of the mask blink a little. “Of course. That sounds like an excellent plan. I have charted a course to the lake house - it will take around 90 minutes for you to get there, making your arrival time somewhere near 10:45. Would you like me to put the suit on auto-pilot mode so you can get some rest?”

He wants to say yes, but he can’t. Dozing off sounds nice -  _ really _ nice, actually - but if he gets stopped somewhere along the way by anyone it won’t do him any good to be half-asleep and barely functioning. He really doesn’t want to fight his way out of anything, especially not now, but if it has to happen, he at least wants to be able to win. “No, I’m - I’m good, actually. Gotta stay alert, you know?”

“Very well, Peter. Though I advise you get some nutrients and rest immediately upon your arrival. You have not eaten since this morning.”

This morning. Since before his stupid date with MJ, where he had been too nervous to force down anything more than a banaba before basically flinging himself out of the door. Feels like a lifetime ago.

He shoves that aside. No time for reminiscing now. “Okay,  _ mom _ . I will.”

“Thank you, my child.”

He snorts a little at that - has he mentioned how much he loves Karen yet? Because it’s a lot - and takes a deep breath in.

_ You’re Spider-man _ , he reminds himself.  _ You’ll make this okay. You have to. _

He takes a step closer to the edge of the building, squinting at the map of his journey Karen’s pulled up for him. 90 minutes. Not bad. He’s not too tired; he can do this.

He’s not a great liar - never was, really - but, as he fires his first web and leaps off the building, swinging in the direction of upstate New York, for now it’ll have to do.

* * *

* * *

Web-slinging is so automatic to him at this point that it’s basically like Karen’s turned on the autopilot protocol as he makes his way up to the lake house. He’s only half-aware of what he’s doing, barely paying attention to anything but the blinking red dot in his vision that shows him where he is on his journey. Once or twice he spaces put so much that he starts going in the entirely wrong direction and Karen has to start gently reminding him that he does not, in fact, have time to make a pitstop in eastern Pennsylvania today.

He honestly doesn’t know what he’d do without her at this point.

He finally shakes himself out of his thoughts - some running track of every horrific thing that’s happened in the past six months and how he doesn’t have the slightest hint of a clue as to how he’s going to fix it - as he lands on the top branches of a tree. It creaks a little in protest, but as he shifts into a squatting position, it stops. It’s not going to break. Hopefully. 

“Where am I, Kar?” He’s whispering now. He’s stopped in some field with a few stray cows sleeping at one end and the silence is so thick and oddly comforting that he doesn’t want to break it by talking at a normal volume.

“You are in the outskirts of Coeymans Hollow, New York. The lake house is about ten miles west of your current location. If you follow the updated map on the screen -” A new, smaller map flashes up in his vision, glowing bright against the dark backdrop of the leaves and the field. “- You should arrive in approximately eight minutes.”

“Awesome. Thanks, Kar.” He stifles a yawn, hopping out of the tree and shooting through the air. “Do - do you know who’s, uh, there right now? At - at the house, I mean?”

“Mrs. Potts and Morgan are, as well as Colonel Rhodes, I believe. He has been staying at the house more frequently, as far as I gather.”

“And -” He swings, narrowly avoiding crashing into another tree. Yikes. “How bout May? Do you know where she is right now?”

“She is not at the apartment - there are no detectable life forms there currently. I do believe, based on my communications with Friday, that Mr. Hogan is with her. I do not know where, exactly, but I believe it is at one of Mr. Stark's local safe houses.”

He nods. Makes sense, even if it does little to quell the clenching worry in his stomach. “Cool. Does - does Pepper know I’m coming?”

“She does. I believe she is currently waiting up for you.”

_ Shit.  _ “She, uh, she doesn’t have to do that? Can - can you tell her -”

“From my knowledge of Mrs. Potts’s character, I believe she rarely does things that she does truly want to do. Especially when it comes to you, Peter.”

He swallows back what feels like a golf ball. He decidedly does not deserve someone like Pepper in his life. At all. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

“You are coming up on the lake house now, Peter. I would advise not stopping on the roof this time.”

He half-winces, half-smiles. The last time he’d done that had also been at a similarly late hour and the noise had woken Morgan up from the depths of her peaceful sleep. He and Pepper had spent the next three or so house trying to get her to go  _ back  _ into said peaceful sleep, but she had quickly developed other ideas upon her waking, such as giving Peter a full on makeover, complete with painted nails. “Yeah. Yeah, good plan.”

“Though I must say, your nails did look exceptionally nice. Glittery pink really does bring out your eyes.”

He snorts. “Don’t let Morgan hear you say that. She’ll do it again in a heartbeat.”

He drops down softly on the grass and pulls his mask off. The air is cold and fresh and shakes off any lingering tiredness within a second. Softly making his way up to the door, he takes a few steeling breaths.

_ I know enough about your friends and family to reasonably guess that they would not be easily fooled by that video either, with or without the benefit of seeing what actually happened like I did. _

He steps onto the porch and, hesitantly, knocks on the door.  _ God _ , he hopes Karen’s right with that one.

There’s a customary pause where he can hear pounding footsteps and he has half a second to take a final, steadying breath - _ it’s okay, it’s going to be okay _ \- before the door is flung open and an incredibly-stressed looking Pepper Potts yanks him inside. 

“You’re okay,” she announces, slamming the door behind them and shoving him into the living room. It’s as it always is - warm and softly lit and covered in a strangely-comforting array of kids toys and business papers - and, despite himself and the undeniably horrible situation he’s in, he smiles just a little.

Pepper Potts, on the other hand, is not smiling. At all. She looks like she’s been propelled into another dimension of anxiety. She gives him a firm once-over before grabbing his shoulders and steering him down into one of the couches.

Her hands are shaking a little.

_ She’s worried, _ he realizes slowly.  _ She’s worried about me _ .

Not angry. Not scared of him. But  _ worried _ .

“The video -” he begins because maybe she hasn’t seen it, maybe she doesn’t know what’s going on. But it is also Pepper Potts he’s talking about - she always knows what’s going - so maybe -

“Is a load of shit, Peter,” she says firmly, still hovering above him. “You need something to eat; what do you want? We have leftover pizza, noodles, sandwiches, I can make some -”

“It wasn’t me,” he says numbly because his brain seems to have tripped over the idea that Pepper does not think he is a murderer who tried to use Tony Stark’s multi-billion dollar AR system to blow up several historic landmarks. “I - I didn’t - he faked the - it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.”

Now it’s  _ his _ hands that are shaking. He clenches them in his lap and stares very aggressively at the corner of the coffee table before swallowing and continuing - because it would be really,  _ really _ shitty of him to just  _ show up _ at Pepper’s house in the middle of the night and start freaking out on her living room couch without explaining what’s happening, even if she already knows. “I - me and MJ - friend of mine - we found out he was faking the elementals - using projectors and I went to - to Berlin to tell Nick Fury but it wasn’t Fury, it was  _ him _ and he - there were illusions and I - I -”

“Peter -” she starts and it’s too gentle, too kind and he doesn’t  _ deserve  _ that; he needs her to understand that this is  _ all his fucking fault _ because he fucking gave _ EDITH  _ to Beck in the first palce. 

“No,” he says, cutting her off with a wave of his hand. “No, it’s - it’s not okay - I went to London because he was gonna do another thing there and I got into the illusion and started taking down the projectors and I got EDITH back and I - I don’t know, I thought he was  _ dead _ so I  _ left _ but then I was in Times Square with MJ and he just -  _ appeared _ and put that video and  _ I didn’t say that _ \- I said  _ execute them _ because I was telling EDITH to turn the drones  _ off _ because they were gonna blow up the entire fucking city and I fucked up so bad but it wasn’t me, London  _ wasn’t me _ \- I didn’t kill him, I didn’t make the elementals, I didn’t -”

“Peter,” she says again, more firmly this time. She crouches down next to him and wraps her hands around his and he shuts up immediately. “I know it wasn’t you. I don’t for a second think you would do that. Neither does Happy, neither does Rhodey, neither does May. No one does.”

He shakes his head again. “Ned,” he mutters, fixing his gaze on the coffee table even harder. His eyes are burning again. “MJ, they -  _ I didn’t -” _

“I know,” she says in that same calm voice. “Peter, I know. They know; they know  _ you.  _ Anyone -  _ anyone -  _ who knows Peter Parker would know you are the exact kind of person who would give everything they had to  _ stop  _ things like that. Anyone who knows you knows you wouldn’t do that - that you  _ didn’t  _ do that. And, he’s, okay, there’s a lot of people who don’t know you who think Beck is telling the truth. But we’re - me and Rhodey - we’re working on that. Damage control is what we do best, after all. And Happy is making sure your aunt is safe and  _ you’re  _ safe and everything is going to be okay. Okay?” She grabs his hands again and squeezes them together. “You’re going to be okay, Peter. You’ve done fantastically. We’re going to fix this.”

“He would know -” he forces out. His chest feels like it’s been compressed, ribs being squeezed together by some sort of metal band.  _ My fault, my fault, all my fault.  _ “He - Tony. He would know - he would do it right -”

“You  _ did _ do it right, Peter -”

“He would do it  _ better!” _

She jerks back a little as the shout rips out of him, echoing through the silence of the house. He presses his hands to his mouth and they’re shaking, he’s shaking, and Tony is gone, Tony is still gone and he’s always going to be gone and Peter can’t do a single fucking thing right; he doesn’t know  _ how  _ \- he doesn’t know how to do  _ anything  _ anymore.

He barely even knows how to cope.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m - I’m so sorry -”

His voice cracks along the edges. Splinters, like a beam of wood with too much weight on it. 

Maybe that’s all he is. Splintering.

He breaks his staring match with the coffee table to look up at Pepper’s face, still a few feet from him. Her hands haven’t left him - one hand is still gripping his while the other is squeezing his knee - and it’s like she’s pulling him back to earth. Grounding him, dragging him away from the endless cloud of grief and guilt and anger that’s swarming around him. Tony used to talk sometimes about how much he needed Pepper, always saying the word  _ need  _ with a heavy and vast connotation that Peter didn’t quite understand. But, in moments like these, he does. He’s more than a little certain that, if it weren’t for Pepper right now, he would’ve shattered into a million pieces on the carpet ages ago.

“Peter,” she says softly. Her gaze is clouded, obscured by something he can’t really process right now but it makes something weird and heavy drop into the pit of his stomach. “There’s…”

She trails off. Her hand squeezes his. The somethjng in his stomach is in danger of burning a hole through his body.

“What?” he says in a voice that is ridiculously,  _ embarrassingly  _ small. Like a kid, like a stupid little kid.

_ (You’re just a scared little kid) _

She opens her mouth to respond, to do something to alleviate the growing heaviness in him when the sound of footsteps cut her off. 

Heavy, sending creaks throughout the whole house.  _ Loud. _

They’re the stairs that lead up to where Morgan’s and Pepper’s bedrooms are - Pepper always complains about how loud the stairs are whenever he comes over. But the footsteps are too heavy to be Morgan’s and, plus, it’s like midnight; she wouldn’t be coming downstairs for any reason, even if she woke up from a nightmare, or something. Rhodey, then. 

Why is he upstairs, though? His room is down by the kitchen because Tony knew he always liked to snack in the middle of the night and stairs were sometimes still challenging for him, especially if he’d been lying down.

He cranes his neck over his shoulder to see who it is at the same time as Pepper’s grip on him tightens into one of iron -  _ ow,  _ first of all. She’s freaking out, though, he can tell that easily - why is she freaking out?

Then the person starts talking, still only with their lower shins visible.

And every single molecule in Peter’s brain short circuits.

“Listen, Pep, I’m gonna be straight with you. My post-bad dream stories absolutely  _ kill  _ it. I think maybe Morguana was like, hamming it up a bit ‘cause she hadn’t seen me in like, four months, but still _.  _ You should feel threatened. That’s a statement of fact.”

Pepper opens her mouth again - to do what, Peter doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know  _ anything. _

Because that’s Tony.

That voice is Tony’s.

That tone, snarky and joking and laced with faux-confidence, that Peter has burned onto the very core of his memory.

It’s Tony. It’s Tony. 

_ It’s fucking Tony. _

“Pep?” The voice - Tony, Tony’s voice, Tony’s voice - takes on a note of concern. “A you with me?”

And then a head comes into view, eyes scanning the low-lit living room for a second before they lock with Peter’s.

Those eyes. Brown - with hints of caramel and gold, almost - and light and filled with life. Not like Titan, where they were cold and hollow and empty-looking.

Alive. 

Tony - 

“Pete?”

That voice. That name. Those eyes.

It’s Beck. It’s Beck and he’s back and he’s going to kill him and he’s probably already killed Pepper and Morgan and Peter fell for it, it fell for the stupid fake text and the vision and he probably led the man to the lake house and Pepper and Morgan are  _ dead  _ and it’s because of him, becaus he’s stupid, he’s so, so fucking  _ stupid _ and this isn’t real, this isn’t real,  _ this is not real  _ because Tony is  _ dead _ and Peter  _ knows _ it because he saw him die,  _ he saw it, he saw it, he - _

“Pete?” 

More urgency. Same tone. Same eyes, same hands, same face. 

It’s not Tony. It can’t be him. The universe doesn’t do that, doesn’t work like that. People die and they don’t come back - Peter knows this, knows this better than anyone else. Tony  _ died _ and he cannot be here because he is fucking  _ dead - _ Peter saw him die, he  _ knows _ what he saw - and this is just Beck’s next sick attempt at getting him to break.

It’s working. He breaths in and it sounds more like a sob because this is Tony’s face and Tony’s eyes and Tony’s voice and Tony’s smell of aftershave and motor oil and apples and this is all he’s ever wanted, to see Tony alive again, and it’s  _ not even fucking real. _

He stands. Maybe. He’s not sure. Everything is swaying and distorting and his eyes are burning with even more tears he can’t seem to blink away and he can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do  _ anything _ except step back and back and back until he hits the door and, with one shaking hand, throws the lock back and pulls it open.

This isn’t real. He has to get out of here. Beck’s going to kill him, Beck’s going to  _ kill _ him, he’s -

“Peter!”

His chest cracks open. Heart shatters into a million pieces. The confusion and hurt in Tony’s voice is so real, so agonizingly real and this isn’t fair _ , this isn’t fucking fair.  _

This should be real. He wants it to be real so fucking bad.

“Fuck you, Beck,” he hisses to the living room, to the vision of Tony, to wherever the man is hiding.

And then he runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha Haaaaa....
> 
> n e ways. Pepper potts is god and one day she will rule us all and i’m personally very excited for that to happen. also last bit of this chapter is a mess sry i forgot how to write for a sec there Whoops
> 
> ALSO WE WERE ROBBED OF PETER KAREN INTERACTION IN FFH AND IM...mad abt it. karen is also god. i adore her with my whole being. 
> 
> thank u for all the love on the last chapter !!! sm support ur guys are angelsssss i love youuuu hope u like this one!! sry for cliff hanger part 472848 i do that a Lot oopsie


	3. III

Peter makes it halfway into the woods surrounding the lake house before his lungs give out.

His knees buckle first and then his body fully shuts off, sending him up awkwardly crashing into the base of a nearby tree. His half-healed ribs and back and whole _body_ , really, screams in protest at the impact.

He just sits - lays, really - there panting.

In and out. _In and out._

It’ll take Beck a moment to find him. He’s just a man, after all. No magic. No superpowers. Just a man with some drones and a gun. Which he could have with him, honestly. It’s not like Peter wouldn’t be able to tell, or something. Heck’s fooled him time and time again before; what’s one more stunt?

This whole thing is a stunt, he realizes, still pressed up against the base of the tree. The position hurts but suddenly he’s too achingly tired to so much as roll over into the empty clearing. This whole thing is just another stunt.

The bark under his fingertips feels real. The gentle hum of crickets in the background feels real. Tony’s preserve felt real.

Then again, so did the gravestone. So did MJ falling off the Eiffel Tower. So did the Iron Man skeleton coming out to grab him. All of that felt just as real, so he can’t really discern what is and what isn’t physically existing anymore. Not when Beck’s involved.

And that terrifies him. Sitting alone at the base of a tree in a forest beside his dead mentor’s house who some lunatic has decided to fake-resurrect to fuck with him, he realizes just how much that terrified him.

His chest feels too small; the air feels hot and weird and heavy when he tries to breathe it in. The blood in his ears starts roaring.

Peter curls his fingers around the bark, almost wrenching if off the tree. _Focus,_ he snaps internally at himself. _Breathe. Stay focused. He could be here any minute, he could -_

But he can’t focus because there’s nothing concrete to focus on. The bark and the tree and the entire forsest could be fake, as far as he knows. Hell, the entire _world_ as he knows it now could just be another projection, another illusion that he’ll die trapped in.

Peter squeezes the bark hard enough for it to cut into his fingers. He doesn’t know anything anymore.

He should get up. Run, move, go somewhere, hide. Find a payphone, call May, tell her he loves her and then disappear. It’s safer - right? He’s a danger to everyone if he’s out in the open; there’s no telling how close behind Beck will always he. Better to keep that man running after him than after his family, right?

Right. Right. He has to protect them.

_(If they’re even real anymore; if they still even exist outside Beck’s illusions)_

It’s his job. He’s supposed to be a _hero,_ after all - he _has_ to protect his family. He has to, he -

Suddenly every single thought in his head is obliterated as footsteps he hadn’t even heard sound from somewhere and, before he even has time to scramble to his feet, something loud and heavy crashes into the clearing and stops dead in the center.

“Peter.” Tony’s clothes look dusty and are covered in leaves. He’s panting - _hard_ \- like he just came sprinting all the way from the house.

Which he probably did. Beck would make it like that, make it realistic - because that's exactly something Tony would do, right? Take off running into the woods in middle of the night to find some stupid kid who shouldn’t be worth his time, right?

“Go away,” Peter hisses, finally rising to his feet. His injured leg screeches in protest and he presses his weight up against the tree. “I don’t wanna hurt you, Beck, please - please leave. Please.”

He’s begging - of course he is, how predictable and _weak -_ now, holding his hands up like that’ll do anything to fend the vision off.

Tony - Fake-Tony - looks confused. He doubles over for a second, still panting, before straightening up and passing a hand over his face.

He looks tired. Exhausted. “Beck? Who - who’s Beck?”

“Please,” is all Peter says, shaking his head slowly. “Please - I - _I don’t wanna fight you.”_

Fake-Tony gives him a totally baffled look, eyes shining through the gloom. “This is Tony,” he says slowly, gesturing to his body. “Me. I’m Tony. Not this - _Beck_ guy.”

Peter shakes his head with more vigor, stepping a few inches away from the tree. Before Fake-Tony can open his mouth again, Peter presses his wrists together, opening up the web-shooters and flicking them on. Fake-Tony flinches back a little.

“Whatever happened to using our words?” he says in a horribly timed joking way that is so achingly Tony.

“Shut up,” he hisses, extending his wrists further. “Get out of my head.”

“I’m - I’m just here, Pete. It’s just me; I’m not gonna hurt you.”

 _Lies_ . Beck was going to kill him on that bridge. They had fought together and Peter had liked - _trusted -_ the man and he was going to kill him without batting an eye. What’s to say the thing couldn't happen now?

“Get away,” he repeats.

“Peter -”

_“Go away!”_

Fake-Tony is adamant. Also, incredibly hurt looking which makes Peter’s chest clench painfully. “I’m not leaving you,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. “Not again. Not on my watch.”

Peter pauses. Swallows. Beck would’ve killed him by now. The mad didn’t waste time on the bridge, so why would he waste time now, when it’s arguably _easier_ to kill Peter now than it was then - less people, less witnesses, less chance of him being saved.

So maybe -

Maybe?

“Tell me something only Tony would know,” he demands, not dropping his hands

Possibly Fake-Tony raises his hands above in surrender. There’s a couple of stray leaves in his hair and, in the moonlight, the stubble on his face turns an almost silver color and he looks so _real._ So achingly _real._

“Kid, what -” The man looks confused, deflecting the question with a vague wave of his hand - still held high above his head - and Peter’s heart drops five feet into the ground. He primes the web-shooters, the action sending a gentle hum throughout the clearing. Fake-Tony flinches back a little.

“Tell me,” Peter repeats, forcing each word around the gaping hole in his chest that’s screaming that this is fake, this is fake, _all_ of this is fake and _Tony is still dead._ “something only Tony would know or I swear to _god_ I’m gonna stick you to that tree for the next six months.”

“Peter, what’s going on?”

_“Tell me!”_

There’s a pause. His shout echoes around the silent forest. Fake-Tony’s face contorts in confusion for a second before he drops his hands, smoothing the front of his shirt down a couple of times.

It’s an old MIT one with some burn holes in the hem. It looks so real.

“Okay. Okay, remember - ah, shit, remember when I walked in on you doing your impression of me for Ned when you guys stayed at the Tower a while back? You’d done the full thing - spiked your hair up, made a fake goatee out of shaving cream, _stolen_ one of my ties - and you were so embarrassed you didn’t leave your room for two hours after Ned left? Then we watched - god, what was it, _Love, Simon,_ or something? Great movie; I totally cried like, six times and you pretended not to notice.”

Peter drops his hands.

Breathes.

Beck couldn’t possibly know that. Even if he had gotten the impersonation thing out of Ned somehow, Peter hasn’t told anyone else about what movie they watched or Tony quietly tearing up throughout the whole thing.

Beck couldn’t know that.

This can’t be a vision.

This is _real_ . _Tony_ is real, Tony is here, Tony is -

Tony is dead. He _died_. Peter saw, heard, felt it happen.

He takes a step back. His movements feel heavy and stiff, like he’s wading through a vat of corn starch. This - the moonlight, the lake house, Tony and the branches cracking under his feet and the leaves in his hair the half-smile forming on his face - is all real.

“You died,” he rasps. “You - _died._ You - you’re dead, you _died, you_ \- _I saw you die!”_

He’s panting, the breathes he’s trying to take not coming like they should. The foundations of his new, post-Titan universe that he’s spent the past god-knows how many months carefully building and rebuilding and rebuilding are blowing into dust at his very feet. This cannot be happening because people die and they’re - they’re just dead. They don’t come back. Tony can’t come back.

He drags in another breath from a windpipe that feels like it’s sealing shut. This can’t be real, this can’t be real, _this can’t -_

“Peter,” says Tony, says the man who died in front of him. He’s a couple of feet from Peter now, hands half-extended in a way that is so familiar. He would never touch Peter when he was having a panic attack until he was coherent enough to ask for it. Never. He always waited.

He’s waiting now. Like he always did.

“You d-died,” he forces out as Tony inches forward. “I saw it. I _saw -_ felt - _fuck_ -”

He had heard the man’s heartbeat fade. Heard it disappear second by second until all that was left was a gaping black hole of silence.

“Peter,” Tony says again, drawing closer still. He can’t tell if he wants to run into the man’s arms and never leave or take off in the opposite direction because this _has_ to be a vision, this has to be Beck because there’s no conceivable way Tony is still alive. “Peter. Breathe. You gotta breathe, buddy. In and out. In and out, copy me. In -”

Tony takes an exaggerated breath in, motioning up with his hands. Peter copies, whole body feeling like it’s about to crumble away.

“- and out -”

They exhale. Repeat the process until Peter can do it by himself.

Tony reaches out to do something - put a hand on his arm, maybe - and Peter _flinches_ back. It’s Beck, it’s Beck, it’s Beck all over again.

The man’s - not Beck’s, Tony’s; god, he’s being so _stupid_ \- face creases a little but he collects himself in record time. “Okay. We’re not very touchy-feely right now, okay. Listen - Pete, I will explain everything. I will explain everything. I promise. But you gotta come back inside, okay? It’s cold as _balls_ out here right now and you’re going to get hypothermia and I have enough of my own medical bills to foot without adding yours on the pile - kidding, kidding, you know I always would - and Pepper’s freaking out probably and -”

Tony breaks off. His voice is shaking in the minuscule way it does that tells Peter he’s about six seconds away from losing it and he doesn’t know what to do.

He has no idea what to do right now.

“Just come inside, Pete. Please.”

He shakes his head. “You died,” he whispers in his smallest voice yet. He can still feel it, still feel the hole the loss of Tony punched through him like a physical wound. That was _real._ He _died._

Something dark crosses Tony’s face. Peter can see his hands working into fists at his side. “Yeah,” he says in a. voice that is equally as small as Peter’s. “Yeah, I did. I’m gonna explain everything. Just -”

Peter jerks his head. “Inside,” he finishes.

Tony nods back. His hands seem permanently suspended between reaching for Peter and drawing back. “Yeah. Inside.”

They walk in silence. Peter flinches at every noise, ever snapping twig and crunching leaf and stray animal. He looks around every corner, still completely expecting Beck to jump out of somewhere and shoot him.

Tony stares at the ground the whole time. His face is unreadable.

Pepper is standing on the porch when they come back, white-knuckling one of the banisters. She gives a heavy sigh as they file up the staircase in silence.

“Peter,” she mutters, grabbing his forearms and squeezing just hard enough to drag him back to earth. He gives what he hopes is a reassuring smile. It feels like it gets stuck somewhere around a grimace.

“I’m okay,” he says in the same shaky, broken voice as the woods.

He is really, _really_ not okay right now. Maybe it’s not Beck but there’s no _way_ this can be real and that hurts so, so much because it feels _so_ much like reality.

It feels like if Tony touched him he would feel it. The same way he’s feeling Pepper’s hands now and he can’t do that, he _can’t_ feel that because it isn’t real.

And if he feels it once, he’s not going to be able to snap out of this and go back to life without Tony. He just won’t be able to.

He breaks contact and marches into the living room without another word. Tony and Pepper exchange murmurs in the doorway - _fake, this is fake, this is all fake_ \- before following him.

He sits down on the couch. He feels heavy. Heavy and yet light at the same time. Like he’s dreaming. This is just a dream.

Right?

“Okay,” Tony says, sitting down in the chair next to him. His gaze is burning a hole into Peter. “Kid? Can you look at me?”

He does. Tony’s eyes are bright and alive.

“Okay. So, let’s just start at the beginning, okay? A while back, me and Helen - Helen Cho, you know her - struck up a little deal. Not a deal, really - it was more of a joke, really, but we basically came to the agreement that, in exchange for her not being a hardass about me almost dying like, six times a week, I would sort of...give her my body, I guess, when I eventually _did_ die. For medical purposes, you know, because we kind of figured I’d die in some weird creative way that she’d want to research and look into, or something. So, and then, and then, and then I actually _do_ die and we - well, Steve and Thor, I guess - brought me back here and everyone was kind of running around so I was just placed in cryo almost immediately after I, you know. The snap.”

Peter nods. His whole body feels like it’s being slowly electrocuted.

“Yeah,” Tony nods, passing a hand over his face. “Yeah, and then, well, then there was the funeral and I guess Helen had some qualms about cutting me open five days after I’d just died - grief, I guess, though I couldn't tell you _why_ ; I was nothing but a pain in the ass _for_ her, but whatever - and five days kinda turned into four months pretty quick, so I just stayed there. In cryo.”

Peter nods again.

“And then. They picked up some trace of vitals one random ass day like, two, three weeks ago. Just the faintest trace of a brainwave, really. But it was enough for Helen to freak out and start - excavating me, basically. Long story short, I lived. Barely - like, really cutting it close with the _barely_ there - but I lived. It’s like - okay, you know when you plug too many into an electrical grid?”

He nods again. “Like the time I blew out the power because I had seven things plugged into that one extension chord?”

Tony laughs, a loud, clear sound that rings around the room and the corners of Peter’s mouth turn up at the ends instinctively. His chest aches. He’s been waiting to hear that sound for so, so long.

“Exactly like that,” Tony says, still smiling. “My power blew out, basically.”

“But that’s not reversible. That - that’s damaging the battery cells of the power grid, basically. You - you can’t come back from that; you _shouldn’t_ be able to.”

Another dark look crosses Tony’s face. “Yeah, kid, I know. No law of the universe dictates that I should’ve survived. But I did. The overload of power the stones gave me just - turned me off, basically. Sent my body into shutdown mode - that’s why Friday didn’t pick up any vitals; there were _barely_ any at that point. And I would’ve definitely died had it not been for being put in cryo like, a day after the fact. That kept my body in a state where it could begin a regenerative process until the point where my vitals raised enough for Helen’s stuff to pick up on it. There was - there was still a lot of damage. I’ve been in and out of - well, I don’t even know the full picture yet. Surgery, more cryo, operations, you name it. Full skin graft on the left side of my body,” he says, tapping a cheek. It looks totally the same. “Plus a prosthesis from my elbow down.”

He stares - probably inappropriately so. The skin on said arm that’s visible looks - well, like skin. Totally not at all like a metal arm.

Tony must’ve caught his staring because he clears his throat a little. “Doesn’t - doesn’t look the part, I know. I was thinking about pulling a whole Bucky Barnes look, but then I thought, well, if it can look like it never happened, I want it to look like it never happened. Plus, I don’t think Buck would be to happy about me cramping his style like that.”

Another ghost of a smile flits across Peter’s face. He swallows. “I’m sorry I - I freaked out so much,” he mutters. “I - it’s just - I saw you die? And I - I don’t know, I was so _sure,_ I mean, I have the stupid hearing thing and I _heard it_ and I just - when you appeared -” He furiously swallows back a lump and continues. “It’s all I've wanted, you know? To just - for you to just - be here. And when I - saw you I thought -”

“Too good to be true?”

“Yeah, I - just thought if I believed it, it wouldn’t be - real. I thought you’d disappear again.”

Tony’s face twists, twists in the same way it did on Titan when they saw each other for the first time in five years. That moment itself feels like five years ago now; it feels like Peter’s lived and died a hundred times over since then.

He had gotten Tony back for a grand total of twenty minutes before he was ripped away again. Before he _died._ And that had become his new reality; his new god-awful, shitty reality.

But now he’s back. Tony is here. He’s here and he’s alive and he’s -

He’s just _here._

“I’ll give you two a second,” Pepper says, ducking her head and tactfully stepping out of the room.

Peter looks up at Tony - fully, for the first time since the man first appeared. He looks the same as Peter remembers, basically. His hair is a little longer and his goatee has fleshed out into a fully fledged scruff but it’s him.

_Tony._

“Hi,” he whispers. His eyes are stinging and he doesn’t even mind.

Tony gives him a smile that lights up the entire room starting right from the center of Peter’s chest. “Hi.”

“I missed you.”

Peter’s voice comes out all choked and scratchy and he’s crying definitely but it doesn’t even matter because in two seconds Tony is standing up and hurrying over to the couch, wrapping his arms around Peter without so much as a blink of hesitation. His head finds the crook of Tony’s neck and he shoves it in there, burning his face into the man’s shoulder and gripping the back of his shirt as Tony runs one hand up and down his back and the other gently through his hair.

He’s sobbing now. It doesn’t hurt though, not like during the voicemail when he felt like his whole body was being ripped in half.

It feels like a release. It feels like the tears you cry when you’re coming home after just a few too many hours of being away.

He’s home. Tony is here and he’s home.

“I missed you too,” Tony says thickly and Peter buries his face in harder, breathing in the smell of motor oil and apples and _Tony._ The man takes a shuddering breath. “So fucking much. I’m so sorry - I’m so sorry I left, I’m so sorry I hurt you - Pete, I would never - I -”

He nods furiously, face still pressed against Tony’s shoulder. He never wants to leave this moment. He gets it. He understands.

Tony stops his hands and just squeezes Peter, pulling him in so close it’s like they’re about to melt into each other and, honestly, Peter’s not complaining.

“I love you, kid,” Tony says shakily. “I love you so fucking much.”

He nods again, squeezing the man back. This is it. This is safety - this is _home._ “I love you too,” he whispers. His voice is wet with tears that just keep on coming. “I love you too.”

Everything’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha! happy irondad reunion! i give it 2 chapters before things go severely downhill again...
> 
> ok i am so tired szzzz i hope this chap is like. Relatively coherent. Also this fic is so...cathartic to write idk why Mayhaps i still miss Tony...a lot..i hope this is helpin u guys get over ur Post Endgame Mourning Period too...
> 
> also also. response to this fic has been Mind Blowing??? sm support?? i do not deserve definitely but thank you all sm ur all angelllsssss


	4. IV

_ The air around him feels unfamiliar.  _

_ Heavy. Dense. Breathing it in is like breathing in molasses.  _

_ Not like earth. Not like the air on his home. Unfamiliar.  _

_ And yet familiar, at the same time. He knows this air - has the taste and smell of it burned somewhere into the corner of his memory. He doesn’t think he could forget it if he wanted to - and god does he want to. This air, this planet, this never ending feeling of dread creeping over every inch of him.  _

_ Titan.  _

_ This is the endgame.  _

_ “I am inevitable.” _

_ He goes to snap his own fingers - gauntlet, thank  _ god  _ he built it; thank god he’s prepared - the fates like hanging off his tongue.  _

_ Nothing.  _

_ Nothing happens.  _

_ “Tony?”  _

_ Pepper’s voice. Her face stands out at him among the crowd of soldiers and Avengers and people. She looks afraid. Terrified.  _

_ “Tony - Tony - help -” _

_ She’s crumbling away. He watches as her face hollows out and disappears into the wind, her voice lingering behind like some sort of phantom. He’s stuck. Can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can’t do anything but stand there and watch, gauntlet still raised, as she disappears. As they all disappear.  _

_ “Mr. Stark?” _

_ No. No, no, no.  _

_ “Mr. Stark?” Peter repeats. His eyes look vacant, glassy. “Why - what’s - why’s this happening again, Mr. Stark, I - why are you letting this happen?” _

_ He can’t speak. Can’t breathe. Can’t move.  _

_ “Why aren’t you saving me, Mr. Stark?” _

“Tony -”

_ No.  _ No.  _ He’s failed. Everything, everything he’s done for the last five, ten years is worthless. The people disappear around him, dust swirling around the air, clogging his windpipe, making his eyes burn until he’s alone.  _

“Tony -”

_ It’s just him. Him and the Titan.  _

_ “You could not live with your own failure,” Thanos says. His voice is sharp and gravelly. His eyes seem to be glowing with the power of the stones, the power he failed to reign in. “But now you must.” _

“Tony!”

And then the planet around him disappears - shatters into nothingness - and he jerks upright. Dark. It’s dark. He can’t breathe, still can’t breathe even if the air isn’t heavy and acrid and choking him. 

He failed.  _ He failed.  _

“Tony, Tony, it’s okay.” Pepper's voice. She’s alive. She’s here - but no.  _ No,  _ he - he saw -

“I’m okay,” she continues. “I’m safe. You’re safe. We won.”

They won. 

Tony pants. Nods a little. Pepper’s hand rests tentatively on his back, fingers smoothing up and down the fabric of his shirt. It’s like a lifeline, her touch. Dragging him away from the planet and the burning pain and the heavy feeling in his chest that tells him he  _ died _ , he died and there’s no reason as to why he’s still alive right now. She pulls him back from all that, tethering him down to reality. 

He’s safe. 

“I’m safe,” he says aloud. Mutters it. He’s safe. Pepper’s safe. Morgan is safe. 

Peter is safe. 

Peter is back. He’s  _ alive. _

“Yeah.” Her hand moves to rest at the base of his neck. “I got you,”

The second like comes easy. He almost smiles too, even though he’s still panting and the room still feels too small and, if he breathes in hard enough, he can still taste ash in the back of his throat. “Got you first.”

“The usual?”

He nods. His nightmare topics are wide and varied and all equally horrible, but since he came back they’ve all been centering around the same thing - the second Titan fight. 

_ Came back. _ What a fucking concept. He spent the better part of a decade and a half fighting to save the universe from a threat he didn’t even know the name of until halfway through, totally preparing for death at the end only to survive. 

“I shouldn’t be here,” he murmurs. It’s the truth.

Pepper’s hand doesn’t still. “Bullshit,” she murmurs back. “Where else would you rather be?”

Nowhere. Nowhere but here with Pepper and Morgan and Peter. 

But it still feels wrong.  _ He _ feels - wrong. Scattered. Like living is this nee novel concept that he hasn’t adjusted to fully - which is, incidentally, exactly what’s going on. He only spent four or so months actually dead - and even then he wasn’t dead dead, just in some aggrandize coma - but, even after that, he still feels like the world has lived a billion lifetimes in his absence. Steve is old now. Sam Wilson is Captain America. Thor is a member of the Guardians. Peter went to Europe and did a bunch of crazy shit Pepper’s still refusing to tell him about. Happy actually  _ likes  _ the kid now, too - and his aunt. They’re  _ dating.  _ Morgan can ride a bike without training wheels and is reading at the level of a fifth grader. 

And he missed it all. 

“I’m being an idiot,” he mutters. “Worrying - I feel like I missed so much and I - it’s nothing -  _ nothing  _ \- compared to what, like, Peter must’ve went through when he came back. What everyone who came back must be feeling. And yet here  _ I  _ am bumming because I missed, what, like, four months?”

Pepper’s hand moves up to his hair, gently running through it. “You’re not being an idiot,” she says softly, gently. “You died. And then you came back. Being disoriented -  _ worrying,  _ as you put it - is the logical reaction to all of that. And it will pass. You know it will. I mean, if we want to talk Peter, look at him. He disappeared off the face of the earth for five years and he came back too and he’s pretty much fallen right back into place. You will too.”

She’s right, she always is, but it doesn’t push aside the lingering feeling hovering in his chest. 

“I just -” It’s hard to articulate it. It’s hard to articulate in general, now. He feels like he’s forgotten how to speak sometimes. “Why me, you know? Out of all the people who  _ died _ died - not just who got snapped away - why am I the one who came back? I mean - there’s Gamora, and - and  _ Loki, _ and - Nat. And they all deserve - I mean -”

“You think you don’t deserve to come back?”

Pepper’s tone isn’t judgemental, isn’t angry, isn’t sad. Just observational. Honest. 

He shrugs, shoulder bumping into her. She rests her chin on it, still combing her hand through his hair. “It’s not -  _ that,  _ it’s just - maybe they deserve it more, I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

There’s a pause. Then, “I won’t pretend to understand how the universe works. I won’t pretend to understand how it brought you back. But what I do understand - what I do know is that for those four months when I thought you were gone, I -”

Her voice trembles and Tony leans back into her, presses his whole body against hers like he can soak up her lingering sadness like a sponge - _god_ , he wishes he could. They hadn’t talked much about the more emotional side of him being gone - meaning the emotional side of it for  _ her _ and co.; he couldn’t remember anything between the snap and the start of this week. They had just been happy to have each other back -  _ he  _ had been _ridiculously_ happy to have her back, even if he wasn’t the one who had lost someone in the situation. 

But there’s a time and place for everything. And he’ll listen until he really does die - of old age this time;  what a concept - if that’s what Pepper needs from him. 

She presses her chin down just a fraction harder before continuing. “It wasn’t easy. At all. There were - _moments_ , I guess, where it seemed doable but - those weren’t very frequent. Or long lasting. And I - after I put Moran to bed I would just sit and wait in the living room for hours and hours and hours because I thought maybe you might walk through the door. I would make coffee for you every single morning. I washed and folded all your clothes. Saved all the crossword puzzles. Kept your private phone up and running - that was mostly for Peter, but still - Tony, I did everything I normally did because I just couldn’t imagine living in a world where you weren’t in it. I couldn’t stop doing those things because that would mean you were really dead and - I couldn’t - couldn’t process that. And Morgan is young but she knew enough to figure out what happened and it - it really hurt her. She would just cry and cry and cry all the time and Peter _shut down_ for so long - he wasn’t eating, wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t doing _anything_ andso, yeah, maybe you think you didn’t deserve to come back. Maybe you think it should’ve been Nat, or someone - and I miss her too. I miss her so much but, Tony, we need you here. _I_ need you. You’re - _stupid_ and self-sacrificial to a fault and buy the most _embarrassing_ Christmas presents and never do the dishes when I ask you to and drink motor oil sometimes because you think it’s coffee and I _love_ you. I can’t do this - life - without you. I need you. Morgan needs you. Pete needs you. Maybe - _maybe_ \- you didn’t deserve to come back, okay, whatever, but _we_ deserved it. Think of it like that.”

Tony nods. Swallows. His throat feels tight. 

“I know I said,” he mutters, furiously trying to keep his voice from shaking. “No more surprises. No more - life-or-death, fate-of-the-universe-in-my-hands things. I  _ promised _ and I - I, well, broke it spectacularly. I’m - really sorry. So fucking sorry. I never meant to hurt you, never meant to make you feel -  _ anything  _ bad. I just - Stephen said -”

“You did what you had to do.” Pepper’s hand slides down to wrap around his back. “I’d never fault you for that.”

“I hurt you.”

“You saved the world. You’re a hero, and sometimes being a hero means you have to sacrifice things. Part of the business.”

Tony almost -  _ almost  _ \- scoffs at that.  _ God _ knows how many years since Afghanistan and Stane and the birth of Iron Man and people calling him a hero still fills him with the same feelings of disbelief. “‘’M not a hero, Pep.” He shakes his head. “I - when I put on that glove, I was  _ terrified.  _ More scared than I’ve ever been.”

Her lips press against his temple and, god, he has never and will never deserve this.  _ Her.  _ “Of course you were,” she murmurs. “And you still did it.  _ That’s  _ why you’re a hero.”

“I love you,” he says, because it’s true. It always has been and always will. “A lot. How’d I get so lucky, huh?”

“I hate job hunting.”

He snorts at that. Leans his head into her shoulder. “You’re a real comedian, Mrs. Potts. Here all week?”

Another kiss, this one to his cheek. After all these years, his stomach still flips over like some sort of excited high schooler whenever she kisses him. God, he is so in love. “And every one after that.”

“Thank god. I need someone to stop me from drinking motor oil. DUM-E always encourages it. Think he thinks it’s good for me.”

Pepper huffs a laugh into the back of his neck “That robot, I swear.”

There’s a pause where she slowly turns him to face her. They’re both sitting cross legged, knees bumping, and he reaches out to touch her, cup her cheek with his hand. She’s warm. Alive. Not turning to dust and ash, not falling into any flames, not being crushed by any falling houses. She’s alive. She’s safe. 

_ I love you,  _ he tries to communicate with every movement, every blink, every breath because suddenly his throat is right again and he’s not sure if he can speak.  _ I love you; I love you and you and you and no one but you.  _

“God, you’re beautiful,” he mutters after a moment. 

His voice shakes a little at the end and she just smooths his hair back, leaning into kiss him. On the lips this time. A batch of fireworks goes off in his stomach and he kisses back hard. He is so in love. He is so in love with her. 

“Wanna tell me about London?” he asks as they break apart. 

She rolls her eyes, swatting him - still smiling, though. “You’re the worst. I take that kiss back.”

Tony waves a finger at her. “Hey. Mean. And come  _ on.  _ It’s been - what, a week? Nick’s still ignoring my calls, I’m pretty sure Hill blocked me, like, six years ago and  _ you _ -” He jabs his finger accusingly in her direction. “- are holding back on me. If there’s a threat, I should know about it.”

“There’s no threat - yet. But it’s not my thing to talk about. Peter and Nick should give you the details - Peter especially. I honestly don’t know a lot as it is, just what May’s told me.”

He frowns. “Is it bad?”

“Possible threat-wise? Not so much. We were in danger of being overrun by giant elemental beings capable of destroying entire planets -”

“Excuse me,  _ what?” _

“But that turned  out  to all be fake. As far as we know, the guy behind it has been killed. Emotional damage to Peter-wise, on the other hand…”

Tony’s heart clenches a little. The universe can bring him back from the dead but not give Peter Parker a break for five goddamn seconds? Makes sense. “Shit.”

Pepper nods empathetically. Worry cuts through her face for a moment. “Yeah. I think - whatever Beck did, it was bad. I think that’s why he freaked out so much when he saw you.”

“Who is this Beck guy, by the way? Not - Quentin Beck?”

Pepper’s mouth forms a hard line. “I think so. No confirmation from Fury but I saw a few footage clips and it looks like him.”

_ “Shit.  _ This -  _ shit -  _ this is all my fault then, you realize? All -  _ everything  _ he did do Peter is because of me, oh my  _ god -” _

“You know that’s not true.”

“I shouldn’t have -”

“What, had him fired? Tony, you gave him an idea to design that was supposed to help trauma victims and he walked out with plans for a weaponized AR system and threatened to kill you, like, eight times when you said you wouldn’t let him operate that. He was crazy long before Stark Industries dropped him, trust me. And now he says taking out all his anger on a literal child and the general  population of Europe. This - _that_ \- isn’t on you. It’s on him - this isn’t your fault at all, this -”

“Mommy? Daddy?”

It’s honestly like Pavlov’s Theory, the way he reacts to anything Morgan. The second he so much as heard her voice and his heart is swelling and his mood is lifting several feet. He turns from Pepper to see her, standing in the doorway, looking the most adorable mixture of sleepy and confused. 

God. She is perfect. She is the best thing to ever happen to him - tied with Pepper and Peter and Rhodey and the lot. He’s never going to get tired of thinking that. 

“Hi, sweetie,” Pepper says. “You okay?”

She nods, small hand gripping the doorframe. “Petey is in the kitchen. He looks really sad.”

Now that lowers Tony’s mood a substantial portion. “Sad?” he echoes. 

Morgan nods, brow furrowing. “Yeah,” she says, walking over to the bed and hoisting herself up onto it. She immediately curls up in the space between him and Pepper, pressing her face into his shins as she carries on. “I was gonna get water and he didn’t see me, but he was in the kitchen. His eyes are all red and he was breathing funny. Then he saw me and he said he was okay, but I don’t think so. People don’t breathe funny like that if they’re okay. So I came here.”

He leans down and presses a series of kisses to the top of her head just because she’s here and she’s his and he can. She giggles, squirming into Pepper a little.

Giving her a final peck, he looks back up at Pepper. She’s smiling, but her gaze is strained. 

“I’ll go,” he says easily. 

She nods. “Okay. Yell if you need.”

He smiles back.  _ I adore you.  _ “Always. Okay, Morguana, I’m  gonna go check on Petey. You watch mommy for me, okay? Keep her safe. She’s very special.” 

Morgan nods safely up at him. “Yeah. Is Petey gonna be okay?”

Tony swallows back a bubble of emotion. He’s been doing that a lot recently. “Yeah. We’ll make sure he stops being sad, okay?”

“Okay. Can you tell him I love him?”

_ I do not deserve this. Nothing I’ve ever done has made me deserve these people in my life.  _ “Of course, baby. You get some sleep now, okay?”

She nods again, curling up into Pepper fully. “Kay. Love you, daddy.”

“Love you too. Both of you.”

Pepper gives him a final smile and he heaves himself up, hurrying out the door. He’s careful to walk quietly through the hall and towards the kitchen, not wanting to startle Peter. 

There he is. Back to the entrance, haunches over the sink. His shirt is off, which is new. Peter’s not the type of guy to parade around places underdressed, even if he is  _ scarily  _ ripped for a seventeen year old kid. 

Then he sees it. 

The kid’s back is a  _ mess.  _ A mess of bruises and blood and cuts and scratches and scars and weird lumps around his ribs that look horrifyingly like half-healed broken bones. There’s an open first aid kit on the table next to him, a handful of antiseptic wipes and open bandages spread out around it. 

Tony swallows.  _ Breathe. It’s okay. He’s going to be okay.  _

“Hi, Mr. Stark.”

Peter doesn’t move. He can see the kid’s arms shaking as he grips the sink. His chest constricts a little. 

“You okay?” he asks, stepping into the kitchen and stopping a foot away from the boy - because that’s what he is, really. Just a boy. Just a kid who’s been through so,  _ so _ much it makes Tony want to wrap him up in bubble wrap and put him somewhere safe and then go scream in frustration for servers hours. 

Peter gives the tiniest shake of his head. His shoulders are twitching and it takes every ounce of self control Tony has not to run right up to him and wrap him in a hug for the next six hours. 

“What happened, Pete? Start from the beginning.”

“It’s - a lot.”

“Good thing we’ve got forever, then.”

Peter sighs. Seems to relax fractionally - or maybe that’s just Tony’s hopes getting to him. 

“Okay,” Peter says in a tiny, shattered voice. “Okay.”

And then he starts. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i said pepperony rights. what abt it. i adore them and they are my Parents! also morgan!! also peter!!! ironfam deserved so much better than what endgame gave it and i am still Mad so here is this ...russo brothers take notes
> 
> also...just had the Worst idea for something to happen later...Omg y’all r gonna hate me.....ITLL BE OK THO
> 
> again as always THANK U ALL for all the support...u are all The Best and i Love you💕💞💞💕


	5. V

“I - it started at this - charity event May was putting on.”

This is a mistake. 

Every single wound up, frayed, aching nerve in Peter’s body is screaming at him that this is a mistake, that he’s making the wrong choice by opening his mouth, never mind dumping all his metaphorical emotional baggage on Tony. 

He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve this. Peter isn’t his kid, isn’t his job, isn’t his responsibility. He’s just an intern to the guy - and a fake one at that. It’s three in the goddamn morning and there is no reason that he should stand in the middle of the kitchen and make Tony listen to his son story. The guy died. Peter’s problems are stupid and infinitesimal in the face of that. 

_This isn’t his job_ , he reminds himself furiously, gripping the edge of the sink until his knuckles turn white. They shine through the gloom of the kitchen - he hadn’t bothered to turn the light on as he had stumbled in there ten minutes earlier, frantically searching for a med kit because the half-finished stitches Happy had put in the cut on his back and shoulder had started coming undone and he had started bleeding all over his bedsheets. 

_Weak._

Peter’s shoulder is burning. Searing with a pain that, if he stopped to give it the time of day, would probably make him pass out. Part of him knows he should be worried about his healing factor taking so long to fix himself - it’s been almost a week since London and the train - and the other part just doesn’t care. 

_Just a scared little kid._

“Pete?”

Tony’s still there. He shouldn’t be, but he is. 

“If you don’t wanna talk, that’s totally cool,” the man says in just the controlled voice that tells Peter he’s about two seconds away from freaking out. “But you - you look a little roughed up. I - I’d like to get to that tonight, at least.”

He feels himself nod. Then -

“Something for - for displaced people from the snap. We - it happens to us - to her, really; I was on Titan when I came back - and she set it up because, I don’t know. She’s good like that. But - but yeah, we were there and then Happy shows up, right? And - and he has this stupid check and he and May are being - _so_ weird and - whatever, then Mr. Fury starts calling me.”

“Mr. Fury? As in _Nicholas_ Fury?”

Peter can’t miss the note of incredulity in Tony’s voice and it stings, just a little. 

_He doesn’t think you’re ready either_ , a cold voice in Peter's head crows. _Funny_. 

Tony must sense his stiffening - _stupid, stupid, always worrying him, always overreacting_ \- because he backpedals promptly. “Not that that’s surprising - far from it - I’m just - questioning the ethics behind - what was he trying to do, _recruit_ you? A _seventeen_ year old kid who’s just been through horrific levels of trauma? I mean, I don’t know how much _I_ can talk, really, but - yeah. Doesn’t sit great with me, that’s all. Carry on.”

The bite in Tony’s voice is sharp and cold and pointed not at him but at Mr. Fury. Tony sounds - _protective_. Angry on behalf of Peter. 

It feels nice. To know that he cares, that is. It feels really, _really_ nice. 

Peter loosens his grip on the sink, fingers immediately aching in protest. Exhales. 

“Yeah. He - I ignored him, basically. There was this whole science trip at Midtown - me and Ned and MJ and all my friends were gonna go on it and I really didn’t wanna get involved in - in superhero stuff. I just wanted to go on my trip. So I ignored him and - and it was great but then we get there - to Venice - and Mr. Fury shows up to my room and drugs Ned - yeah, it was bad - and then he takes me to this weird underground place and I - I meet this guy called Quentin B-beck. And - and he’s saying there’s these things coming and I have to stop them and I just wanted to go on my stupid, _stupid_ trip so I said no and Mr. Fury was like, _okay whatever_ and he let me go but then he got my trip diverted to Prague - where one of the monster things - elementals - was supposed to show up. And - and I fought it w-with Beck and he - he almost died but he didn’t and it was okay. It was okay.”

He still hasn’t turned around to look at Tony, who’s gaze he can feel silently boring into his back, into his torn up, broken back. He’s scared that, if he does, he won’t he able to hold it together against the full force of Tony’s concern and anger on his behalf. 

He doesn’t want to cry. He’s so sick of crying. 

“And we - we went and got a drink and - Mr. Stark, I gave him EDITH?”

The presence behind him stills. “You - gave him EDITH?”

There’s no anger in Tony’s tone, surprisingly enough. Just a sort of gentle surprise. 

Peter nods. “Yeah. I - I thought you - you wouldn’t want it to be me. I - I don’t know. I didn’t feel ready and I thought you wouldn’t want me to be it, you’d just want me to give it to the _next_ person and, you know, _c-choose_ the next Tony Stark and Beck, he -” 

He swallows, hard. His eyes are starting to sting. _Please don’t cry, please don’t cry, please don’t cry in front of him._

“He just seemed really good, you know? Really nice and funny and smart and capable and - and just like you. And - he reminded me so much of you and I just - I thought he could do it. Like you did. So I gave them to him. But then later me and M-MJ figured out he - he was faking it, he was faking it all and he just wanted to make the elementals so he could be the next Iron Man. He - and I went to tell Mr. Fury - he went to Berlin - but then we got there and Beck shot him and then he did this - vision thing. It was -”

 _You’re just a scared little kid in a_ sweatsuit _. Maybe if you were good enough, Tony would still be alive._

“It was really scary, Mr. Stark? He - he made it so MJ got pushed off the Eiffel Tower and I got beaten up by a bunch of me’s and there - there was your h-headstone and the Iron Man mask with a skeleton inside it and I - I got really confused and _scared_ and - and I couldn’t tell what was happening outside of the v-vision and - and he backed me up onto these train tracks.”

“No,” Tony says suddenly, real fear bleeding through his voice and slamming straight int Peter. “Don’t tell me you got hit. Don’t you dare tell me Beck made you get hit by a fucking _train.”_

He blinks. His cheeks feel hot all of a sudden. Hot and wet. Crying, he’s crying. Silently - thank _god_ \- but still crying. 

_Scared little kid._

“I'm sorry,” he whispers to the bottom of the sink. His body suddenly feels too heavy. Everything feels like it’s sliding down, crumbling like his body did the second the train hit him. “I’m so sorry.”

Then his face smacks against something hard and cold and it takes him a few seconds of awkwardly slumping against the same hard, cold surface to realize his knees buckled and he collapsed. 

His chest feels tight. Tight and fractured. Just like the train, just like the last few seconds of consciousness in the carriage when, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t suck in enough air to keep his vision clear and his body awake. 

He couldn’t breathe then. Can’t breathe now. Part of him doesn’t even care. He’s ready for the inevitable blackness. It’s been a long time coming. 

“Kid?” 

Tony’s voice sounds far away. Quiet. 

He can’t breathe, can’t breathe; every thought and corner and breath is rained with Beck and the pieces of shattered trust and the haunting knowledge that he can’t prove if anything is real anymore. 

“Peter? In and out, kiddo, in and out. Copy me - Pete - Pete, don’t - Peter -”

But the rest of the means voice is already gone. He tips his head back, counts three cracks on the ceiling, and passes out. 

—

The first thing Peter hears is Tony’s talking. Rambling. 

“- and yeah, it was so funny because Pepper didn’t get why so was laughing so hard and then she actually _looked_ at Morgan and burst out laughing because -”

He doesn’t move yet. Doesn’t so much as inhale. He just listens to the sound of Tony talking and shifting around and brushing his hands lightly over Peter’s face. 

He’s alive. They both are. 

“- the sleeves were _so long_ and the glasses won't stay on her face for, like, more than two seconds and, god, I wished you’d have seen it; it was fucking adorable, and -”

He exhales. Blinks his eyes open. He’s in the living room. The shades are drawn. There’s a blanket over his knees. 

“- oh, back with me, okay. Hi - hey, kid. Hi.”

 _They're alive_. 

“Hi,” he mutters to the ceiling. “What time is it?”

“Six-ish. Only been a couple of hours, don’t worry. You - you kind of -”

“Collapsed?” Peter doesn’t break his gaze with the light fixture above him. He doesn’t think he’s ready to meet Tony’s gaze just yet. 

He hears the man inhale a deliberately steady breath. His hands brush against Peter’s cheek again - accident, probably - before disappearing out of his peripheral vision. 

“Yeah. Smacked your chin against the sink, too - thought you bit your tongue in half, or something, but thankfully not. Guess I’m gonna be stuck with you yammering on about everything and anything for a while yet, huh?”

Peter grunts in assertion. He knows he should laugh at that - he normally would, at least - but he doesn’t. Can’t, maybe. His body feels weird. Like if he speaks or moves too much he’s going to unravel at the seams, or just crack open into a million pieces. 

“You okay, kid?”

Tony’s voice is so soft and worried and Peter’s chest twists painfully. This isn’t his job, he isn’t Tony’s responsibility. He’s wasting the man’s time - he’s wasting his own time. He needs to go out there, find Beck, make this right. Fix what he did wrong. 

“I came downstairs because I was bleeding,” he says into the silence because what else is he supposed to do at this point? “After the train - something happened to my shoulder - got cut, I think? And Happy tried to sew it up but I was freaking out so I didn’t let him finish and then it opened up and - I don’t know. My healing - it’s kind of...not working right now, I guess?”

He can sense Tony nodding. The man’s hand rests right next to his, not quite touching but close enough for him to feel comforted by it. “That happened before?”

Peter nods. Winces. “Yeah. After - after the stuff with Toomes. I - got kinda messed up on the beach, I guess. It took a really long time for everything to heal. Like - a month or two, I think.”

“You didn’t say.” Tony’s voice still isn’t accusing, still isn’t angry. Just - worried. So, so worried. 

_Your fault._

He sighs a little. Even that tiny movement hurts. “I - didn’t want you to worry. I was fine.”

Tony echoes his sigh. His hand shifts over so it rests against Peter’s. “You - okay, listen. I know this is going to be a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, and all that, but I really, _really_ don’t want you to base your self-care related decisions off how much you’re going to worry people. I want to take care of you. I _want_ to help you if you need it. So does May, so does Pepper, so do all your friends. You’ve been through a - shit, _huge_ amount of stuff recently. No one - absolutely _no one_ \- is expecting you to process it and cope with it all by yourself, okay? You’ve done brilliantly by yourself and I’m really proud of you, kid, but you gotta let us help you. You gotta tell me when you’re hurting, ‘cause if you don’t, how am I supposed to, I don’t know, help you in the first place?”

Peter grits his jaw against what feels like another sob. He’s too tired to do that all again. “It’s just - I’m not your job, you know? ‘M not your family.”

Tony sucks in a breath. His hand stiffens fractionally. “Peter. Look at me.”

He does, twisting his neck so he can look up to Tony, who’s perched on top of the coffee table. His knees are almost pressing into Peter’s face and he looks so, so tired. 

_Your fault, all your fault._

“You’re my kid. Mine and May’s. You’re - Peter, you’re my family. You’re just as much a part of it as Pepper and Morgan are. I - _love_ you, kid. I love you so much. All I want to do is help you. I’d hack off my other arm if that’s what it took to make you happy, okay? Listening to you, patching you up, that’s no sweat. I mean that.”

Peter swallows hard. He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve this at all. 

“Kid?”

“I think the worst thing about the - about Beck’s vision was the - the fact that I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t, you know? Because it felt so real and I’d be, like, fighting things in the vision and they would hurt me? And I just - could’ve sworn it was all real. And there was a break in it where he, like, pretended to die and Mr. Fury came to the rescue but then that was fake and - and then I saw Happy and I didn’t know if he was real and then my friends and I just - _couldn’t_ tell if anything was real or not. So then I came here and you were there and I - I thought it was fake. I thought I had led Beck here and he’d killed Morgan and Pepper and I still kinda think that and I’m just - _scared_. I’m really scared, Mr. Stark.”

Tony’s hand squeezes his. His grip is tight and warm and he can feel the man’s thumb running over the back of his hand. “I’m real, Peter.”

“But what if you’re _not_ -”

Another sigh. Peter keeps his gaze on the ceiling. “I can’t prove reality to you. I can’t, you know, make you think that this is real. I can just tell you what _I_ know to be true and what _I_ know reality as, so here it goes: I am alive. I, Tony Stark, by some miracle of fucking force, survived and I am now alive and sitting right in front of you. Whatever happens in the future, know that I will never leave you again. Ever. I will be at you highchool graduation. I will be there for your first day of college. I will be there for every failed test and completed research paper and patrol and mission and end-of-the-world-crisis and nightmare and date night and sick day. I will be there when you get married, I will be there if you decide to have kids, or get a cute dog, or something. I will be with you until I finally preserve my consciousness in a computer, or something, and then shuffle off this mortal coil and into the digital one. I am not going anywhere. Understand? I love you and I’m not going anywhere. _That’s_ my reality.”

“I’m sorry,” he mutters. “I - I was being dumb, I should’ve just - told you I was hurt, should’ve just asked for help -”

“Do you know,” Tony says in the exact conversational tone of voice that tells Peter what he’s about to say is going to be anything but lighthearted. “ _God_ \- must’ve been over a decade ago now, I guess, my arc reactor started acting up. The metal that was keeping it activated and keeping me alive - palladium - was also poisoning me. No cure. I tried every single element combination I knew of and I was just - delaying the inevitable, at the end of it. I was dying. Like, full on losing control over myself, giving away all my possessions, doing the stupidest shit ever because I could type of dying. And I didn’t say anything to anyone until it was over. Not because I didn’t want help - I did, I really did - but because I didn’t want to be weak. _Hell_ , I thought, _I’m Iron Man. I’m not the guy who should be asking for help._ I thought I could handle it jusy fine by myself - wanted to think that, at least. Honestly, at the core of it all, I was just really scared and really hurt and didn’t want anyone to see me in a moment of what I saw as weakness. I didn’t want to worry people. So I shut everyone out.”

Peter nods, not trusting his voice enough to speak. It’s too soon after the real - or what he thought was real - thing, too soon after almost losing the man to think about any situation in which he almost dies. 

“Yeah. Heavy stuff. And I don’t mean to make this all about me - I and my palladium are old news now - but, look, this whole - _thing_ you got going on; this idea that you don’t deserve help, you don’t need it, you _shouldn’t_ need it, whatever, it’s not a novel concept to me. But whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably not true, okay? It’s okay to be hurting. It’s okay to be scared - I’d be scared. I’d be out of my _mind_ with terror, and look at you. Keeping it together like the honset-to-god hero you are - I’m blown away by you. Every single day, kid, honestly. But the point is, you don’t have to, you know, keep it together alone. WE all love to pretend we can do things alone. Kind of a superhero thing, you know? And there was this moment - Pep and I were on a plane and I was trying to get her to cancel my birthday party just have us spend however long I had left together. And, because she had no clue what was going on because I didn’t _tell_ her, she brushed it off. Now, thankfully, I didn’t die so it didn’t really matter and we got to go to Venice anyways, but I think if I had, I’d be pretty pissed at myself for missing out on moments with someone I loved because they didn’t have the full picture. Point is - part _two_ \- we just gotta tell people how were doing sometimes. Even if it’s not pretty, even if we think we’re going go burden them or worry them or make them sad. Because you can’t do it yourself, Pete. You always end up worse for wear - mentally, physically - both, ususally. And I don’t want to see you get hurt trying, okay?”

Maybe when he’s old and grey - if he ever gets to that point; right now that prospect isn’t looking very likely or feeling very appealing - he’ll have finally made u for the laundry list of things he’s done wrong - from his uncle’s death to Toomes to Titan to Beck to whatever comes next - enough to deserve someone like this - someone like Tony - in his life saying these things. Telling him that it’s okay to be scared, okay to be hurting. Maybe one day he’ll have made up for things enough to be really deserving of those sentiments; deserving of the man saying them.

Probably won’t, but it’s nice to think about.

“I don’t deserve this.” Is all he can get out and it sounds so stupid and melodramatic and self-pitying but he’s laying on a couch with a million wounds all over his body and feeling about three seconds away from breaking down again, so maybe melodrama is warranted at this point. 

Tony’s hand squeezes his again. “You’re right. You’re so right. You deserve normality and stability and to be able to go home to your friends and your aunt and live your life like the teenager you are. You don’t deserve to have the weight of the world dropped on your shoulders by people like Fury who forget that you’re _just a kid._ You deserve to feel okay. And, alright, if we can’t get those things right now, then the very least I can do is help you get on the path to getting them, yeah?”

“I -”

“Next words outta your mouth better not be another deflection of that whole tirade, kid, or I swear to god.”

Tony’s voice is light, joking, but it still makes Peter’s stomach clench. He's being annoying. He’s being stupid. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles. 

Tony sighs again, releasing his grip on Peter’s hand to press his own to Peter’s cheek. 

“Gotta stop with that, kid,” he says, almost sadly. “You’re the last person on this planet who needs to be sorry.”

“If something happens with Beck,” Peter says, shaking his head. “That’s - that’s on _me_ , Mr. Stark.”

“How?”

“I - I don’t know - I didn’t check to see if he was really dead, I gave him the power to destroy, like, half of Europe, I ran my mouth and put all my friends in danger - take your pick -” 

“You stopped him from killing millions. You saved your friends. You saved London. Beck would’ve done exactly what he did, regardless of whether or not you gave him EDITH and it would’ve been so much worse if you hadn’t been there. The guy’s batshit crazy; not even you can’t take credit for that, okay?”

He’s not convinced remotely, but he really wishes he was. Tony’s tone is so calm, so ernest. Like he believes everything he’s saying, which sucks because it’s the furthest thing from true. 

But Tony’s relentless - always is when it comes to stuff like this. “Okay, kid? You’ve done beautifully. I’m so proud of you. And whatever happens next, it’s not all on you anymore. We’ll fix it together.”

“Okay,” he says, still not entirely convinced. _Your_ _mess_ , you _fix_ _it_. “Okay.”

Tony’s thumb brushes underneath his eye. He’s gentle, always so gentle. It makes Peter’s chest ache painfully. 

“Know you’re only saying that so I’ll shut up,” the man murmurs. “It’s okay. It’ll get better. That’s a promise, and - hey, when do I ever break those?”

His tone is still light and airy, but Peter can feel something heavy resting in the back of his voice. They’re both thinking of the same thing, then. Titan. The gauntlet. The funeral. 

He shoves that aside, almost viciously. None of that was Tony’s fault. _None of it_. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs. He presses his face into Tony’s hand a little. “I trust you.”

And he does. With his life, with the fate of the universe, with everything and anything he has. 

“What do we do now?” Peter says softly. He finally - _finally_ \- looks back over to the man crouched next to him. Tony still looks a little tired and a little sad - nostalgic, maybe - but he can’t miss the blistering relief on the man’s face. His eyes are hazel and bright and alive his hair is greying at the temples - testament of old age; Tony’s old; he’s _alive_ \- and his mouth quirks up at the corners a little as Peter speaks. 

“Well, you are going to get some rest. I patched up he worst of your wounds while you were out, now it’s just a matter of you sleeping it off, really.”

“Then what?” _Plan, they need a plan, they need a plan_

“How bout we cross the bridge when we get to it? Well, _I’ll_ cross it now, but you, as I said, need rest. Worrying about - elementals and lunatic conmen isn’t going to make that process any easier.”

“I -”

“For my sake, if nothing else, okay. Get some rest - at least try. Please?”

The desperation bleeds through Tony’s voice momentarily but even that’s not enough to quell the bubble of worry and fear expanding in Peter’s stomach. He’ll be useless if all he does is sit here and _sleep_ \- or pretend to. 

But any protest he was going to make dies on his lips in an instant as a jarring banging sound echoes throughout the quiet of the living room. 

It’s coming from the door. Beside him, he can feel every single muscle in Tony’s body stiffen as the man whirls around to face the source of the noise. 

It can’t be Beck. It _can’t_ be, right?

Or not. Who knows. 

“Stay here,” Tony mutters - breathe, really. Peter twists his neck in time to see the man’s hand snaking to his wrist, looking for the concealed metal band he knows is there that will open up an Iron Man gauntlet. 

_If Beck knew where he was, he’d be dead be now, they’d all be dead by now -_ right?

There’s another bang. Rhythmic sounding. It’s a knock. 

Peter shifts into a sitting position as Tony moves towards the door, hand half-extended. Okay, Beck definitely wouldn’t knock. That much he knows. 

Tony presses his hand to the door - the one that isn’t still primed to blast a hole through whatever’s on the other side. There’s a pause - some sounds of shuffling, and then Tony steps back. Turns to Peter. 

_Smiles?_

“It’s Happy,” he says, the joy flooding out of his voice and washing over Peter. “It’s Happy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gksnsns this chapter is ...Bad i am sorry:( next one will be Better and more Coherent. also does it  
> look like i proofread it spoiler alert i did not proofread a single bit of this like not one (1) word was proofread Whoops. it’s ok. Peter is being Looked After and that’s all that matters <3


	6. VI

“Do you know I’ve been doing for the last twenty four goddamn hours?” Happy says in a long-suffering voice, striding past Tony without blinking. The man crosses the living room and tosses himself into the chair opposite Peter, groaning slightly. 

Yep, that’s Happy alright. This is real. 

_(I don’t think you know what’s real, Peter)_

But it’s gotta be Happy - it _has to be_ ; if Beck had found them already they would all be dead by now, he wouldn’t play it out like this. 

But he would. He really, really would. 

Tony hasn’t moved from the door. He’s eyeing the back of Happy’s head with an expression of abject suspicion. Peter can see the man’s hand twitching down to his Iron Man bracelet as he locks eyes with him and mouths _how do we know?_

“Tell me something -”

Happy cuts him off with an almost bored expression on his face. “Yeah, yeah, something only I would know. Can I repeat the story I told you before or does that not count?”

Peter’s face _burns -_ seriously, it’s he was just lit on fire - and he waves a hand in the man’s direction. 

_“No,”_ he intones - god, out of all the totally normal, not at all questionable things he did on that trip why did Happy have to figure out about the _one_ slightly embarrassing one? “It doesn’t. Give me a new one.”

“Remember after that mess with Adrian Toomes when you two were having a whole moment together crying, or whatever, and I accidentally walked in on it and Tony threw a book at my head? Book was _The Grapes of Wrath_ , by the way and it fucking hurt.”

Peter feels the tension flow out of him - most of it, at least. In front of him, he sees Tony’s shoulders sag visibly as the man makes his way back over to the living room, settling down next to Peter. 

“Sorry about that. There were tears and emotional discoveries and I panicked. Also, no hello, by the way?” Tony says, looking mock-offended. “Rude.”

“Relax,” Happy grumbles into his hands. “We already had our tearful reunion. Anyways -”

“Wait, you _knew_ Mr. Stark was alive and you didn’t tell me?”

Happy gives him a look that isn’t as annoyed as the man’s probably shooting for. It falls a little more in the exasperatedly concerned region. “I only found out, like, three days ago, kid. I wanted to give you a few minutes to, you know, recuperate so you didn’t have a full body shut down when you found out, or whatever.”

“Also - Mr. Stark? _Still?”_ Tony says, arching an eyebrow in his direction. “C’mon, kid, you’re killing me.”

Peter just grins as Happy flaps a hand at Tony. 

“Hey, be nice. I think it’s endearing.”

“Oh, you do?” Peter fixes his grin on the “Should I start calling you Mr. Hogan now?”

“Do that and I’ll choke you out, kid,” Happy grumbles, not missing a beat, and Tony snorts inelegantly towards the ground. 

This is okay. This is okay and nice and safe and so refreshingly normal. 

_Too normal,_ a voice in the back of his mind prompts. _You’re being a sucker again. Falling for it again._

_(You need to wake up!)_

He shoves that aside. He’s here. This is real. 

He’s safe. 

“So, _anyways_ -” Happy begins again, massaging his temples. 

“Yes, Mr. Hogan, you were going to tell us what you've been doing for the past twenty four hours, I believe?”

“Oh, you know. Just talking on the phone with our favorite Secretary of State. On and off, but it sure fucking felt like it was for a day straight.”

Tony’s smile slips. “Ah.”

“ _Ah_ is right.” Happy sighs with the air of a man about to drop some earth-shattering news on the table and Tony’s face is twisting into something that looks a little like a scowl and Peter really must be missing something here because all he knows about the Secretary of State is that his name is Thaddeaus Ross and he has an ugly mustache. “He - okay, he’s pissed. He wants to bring Peter in.”

Yep, that’s definitely a scowl on Tony’s face. “That’s funny. I’m hoping you reminded him that Beck’s video is a load of horseshit and Peter’s also _seventeen years old_ and I’m pretty sure there’s some legal ramifications surrounding throwing a seventeen year old in the Raft.”

“He didn’t explicitly mention the Raft, but -”

“Subtext, Happy, it's all in the subtext,” Tony says loudly, standing up. Peter can see his one of his hands working around his wrist, squeezing it and gripping it to his chest in the way that screams that his anxiety is rising and Leger is totally clueless as to why. 

Okay, not _totally_ clueless. He knows what the Raft is - Tony mentioned it to him once or twice when he was still working on modifying the Sokovia Accords. It’s some big metal

prison that’s submerged underwater and really high-security, or something, and one time a bunch of the Avengers got put in there for a while until. Thaddeaus Ross came into play during all of that, too, as he was the one who introduced the Accords in the first place and had those Avengers imprisoned. But, other than that, those two names - the Raft and Ross - mean virtually nothing to him. 

Which, judging by the heavy looks Happy and Tony are exchanging, is not the right view of the picture. Peter struggles into a more upright position - his body protesting less than before, thank god - and stares the two of them down. 

“What’s going on?” he demands, because that’s always a good place to start. 

Another look. Happy sighs, stress practically radiating off of him. 

“Secretary Ross is pressing charges. A lot of them. Everything from property damage to first degree murder to aggravated assault. He wants Peter to come back to the city for - I don’t know, a trial, I guess.”

Peter can almost taste Tony’s incredulity. “ _What_?”

“He saw the video. Everyone has at this point.”

”And, what, they _believe_ it? Are the fucking _stupid_?”

A sinkhole is staring to open up in Peter's stomach and it only worsens as Happy nods, face grim. He knew - he _knew_ \- people would buy it - Beck just has that affect on people - but somehow hearing it for real makes it feel so much worse. He swallows.

Meanwhile, Tony’s still raging. “This is - _horseshit_ \- Ross is stupid, but he isn’t _that_ stupid, how is he falling for this? He _knows_ how much good Peter’s done; they all do -”

Happy sighs heavily. Peter can feel his heart sinking lower and lower with every passing second. “There’s no evidence - no _one_ to corroborate the idea that the video was faked that’s credible, so he thinks he has no choice but to act on it. _Keeping New York_ _safe_ , or whatever he said.” 

“What about Fury?” Tony asks, snapping his fingers. “And Maria. They’re both trusted, centered individuals who Ross _likes_ who saw the whole thing from the same angle as Peter. Get _them_ to corroborate.”

Happy makes a pained face and Peter’s stomach sinks even lower. “Yeah. Slight, uh, _issue_ with that one.”

Tony looks vaguely murderous. “If you’re about to tell me that Fury is _refusing_ to step up on the kid’s behalf after he just put him through a fucking emotional tumble dryer, we’re going to have a few more charges of aggravated assault on our hands.”

“No, actually, he can’t testify because he - and Hill - are currently off world. Have been since the funeral, basically. The Fury and Hill we talked to during the trip?” He turns to Peter and his stomach bypassessinking and just slams right through the floor. “They were Skrulls. Who are also gone, helpfully enough. So, yeah. That option’s off the table.”

“Of fucking _course_ ,” Tony spits out with a shocking amount of force. His hand is gripping his wrist, holding onto it for dear life now and Peter can almost taste the anger and anxiety flooding off of him in waves. “And I’m guessing, what, he won’t let Peter’s friends testify either?”

“They’re minors.” Is all Happy says. He looks as close to defeated as Peter’s ever seen him.

_Your fault. All your fault._

“So is Peter,” Tony snaps back, swinging his gaze around like Ross is hiding somewhere sound the room. “And Ross still wants to throw him in the highest security prison in the entire fucking _country.”_

“He’s an enhanced individual, though, so apparently the rules are _different,_ or whatever.”

“Enhanced individual my _ass,”_ Tony hisses, slamming his palm against the wall. The noise is loud and harsh and almost like a gunshot and for a split second he’s back there, back on the bridge with Beck’s bloody face underneath him except he’s _not_ , he’s standing right beside him firing a gun at his head that just misses. 

But then he feels the fabric of the blanket around his ankles and smells the faint scent of pine that permeates around the lake house and the memory disappears, shatters away and he’s met by Tony’s concerned gaze pinning him down. 

“We should do this another time,” Tony says to Happy, not breaking eye contact. “By that I mean I think some of us should probably take a little T.O. and get some rest.”

Peter's about to butt in and insist for the umpteenth time that _he doesn’t need any rest; he’s fine_ but Happy’s already sighing, worry creasing his brow. “Tony, I know this is - not a good time, but Ross isn’t gonna wait. He’s giving me a week to bring Peter in or else he’s gonna find him. And it won’t be pretty.”

“Okay.” Tension ripples across Tony’s voice and he looks so fucking _tired -_ they both do - and the nasty, sneering voice in the back of Peter’s head won’t shut up with the whole _your fault_ thing and he wants everything to stop immediately for at least five days. 

He wants normality. He just wants things to be normal and fine and not permanently on the edge of catastrophe. It _really_ doesn’t feel he’s asking for a lot with his requests to not be turning to dust or to not be so grief-addled he can’t speak straight or to not have the one person he trusted with the fate of the literal universe to turn out to be a power-hungry sociopath or to not be a goddamn _fugitive,_ or whatever. 

It really doesn’t feel like a lot. But maybe he and the universe are always going to be at odds with this one. 

“Okay,” Tony says again. Then snorts, this time with no humor. “ _Find him._ What is this now, a fucking manhunt? Is Ross forgetting this is a literal _child_ he's after, or is he just fucking brain-dead?”

“You know how he is, Tony,” Happy says in a hollow, tired sort of voice that has another world of meaning behind it that Peter isn’t anywhere near close to understanding. He has no idea _how Ross is_ , but Tony seemingly does, because his mouth twists into a grim, hard line. “He was always pissed because Spider-man wasn’t part of the Accords -”

“He’s a _minor_ , they can’t sign legally binding contracts, for _fucks_ sake -”

“Yeah, I didn’t say it made any sense,” Happy snaps, then immediately looks guilty. “It’s just - yeah. I think he was angry he never got to put a lid on Spider-man and, now that he knows who the guy is, he feels like he’ll finally be able to. He really wasn’t happy with the amended Accords, you remember.”

“Yeah, I remember. _God_ , going one day without getting pulled into Ross’s convoluted desires of political payback would be absolutely fantastic, yeah?” Tony massages his forehead, fingers going white with the pressure. “Why does he still give a _shit,_ god. I thought we buried this fucking hatchet - what, six years ago, now? Why’s he pulling this _now?”_

Happy shrugs. “There’s an opening, I guess. Obviously New York isn’t trilled that their local vigilante has apparently turned out to be insane and maybe Ross thinks this will the pressure out, or whatever.”

“Dumbass,” Tony offers, now fully pressing his face into his hands. 

“So, what?” Peter says, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. “This guy - Ross - he wants me to come in?”

“Yep,” Happy says, popping the ‘p.’

“And what if I don’t?”

He’s probably just still out of his mind with the remnants of pain and exhaustion from last night, but Peter could almost swear a flicker of pride passes over Tony’s face before it’s clamped down by the seemingly-permanent expression of worry and irritation.

Happy just shrugs. He looks drained. “Like I said. He’ll come and get you.”

“So I should leave.”

Peter blinks back at the expression of confusion that falls over the two men’s faces. “Well, he can’t come here. That would be -” _Stupid and selfish and endangering the very last handful of people who still trust you, who still think you’re good so you can’t for a ducking second think that you have a place here anymore if that place means those people will get hurt._ “- really dumb. So I should go.”

He moves to stand up - big mistake; he’s healing but still not in walking condition, really - and half-falls back down, gripping the ark of the couch for support. 

Tony cocks an eyebrow at him, standing up to help him. He fights the urge to shake him off. “Yeah, that’s funny. You’re not going anywhere.”

“I have to leave -”

“No, you don’t, actually, you -”

“I’m putting you all in danger -”

“How?”

The answer to that question is too much, resting too heavy in his stomach as it is, so Peter tries a new topic. “It’s not fair on you to be in this position -”

“Peter, sit back down please,” Tony says in his most no-nonsense voice yet that does absolutely nothing to quell the burning tide of guilt in Peter’s stomach that’s threatening to explode outwards. “You need rest.”

“I don’t need rest,” he retorts, the renewed exhaustion clawing at the edges of his vision completely refuting that statement - but, hey, what Tony doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?. This time he does shake the man off, jerking his shoulder awkwardly and ignoring the burn it sends through his body and the equally-painful one that follows with Tony’s slightly hurt expression. 

But he doesn’t falter. Just sets his jaw harder. “Yes, you do.”

“I’m _fine_ -”

“You can’t even stand on your own, kid, don’t tell me you think you can get back in that suit and run off to god-knows where for - what? You think you’re _dangerous?”_

“I _am,_ I need to go -”

“You need to sit back down, _please -”_

_“I’m fine!”_

“You got hit by a _fucking train,_ Peter!”

Tony’s voice cracks a little, the splinters shooting straight through the air between them and landing somewhere deep in Peter’s chest and the man just looks so tired and worried and it’s all Peter’s fault and he _hates it._ Something in the back of his eyes is starting to burn and Tony’s expression is just _so_ heavy and this is so stupid and unfair and he’s so, _so_ tired and -

“Fucking?”

A small voice pipes up from the foot of the staircase, breaking through Peter's thoughts and the heavy silence. Tony’s own vaguely miserable expression shatters into one of pure fear as he goes red, then white, then a weird combination of the two. 

Morgan’s awake, then. Despite the years that almost started spilling out of his eyes not five seconds ago, Peter can’t help but grin as Tony half-flings himself off the couch and hurries over to her. 

“That’s - that’s a bad word, sweetie, we don’t say that word, okay? We - we really don’t say that word.”

He looks so _stressed out_ thatPeter can’t bite back a snort and Morgan looks over at him, grinning. 

“Petey, daddy’s saying bad words!” she announces. 

He shakes his head in mock-severity. “Well, _that’s_ not very good.”

“Can _I_ say bad words, daddy?”

Tony blanches again and mouths something at Peter that looks a little like _help me._ “No - no we _cannot_ say bad words, okay, sweetie? Especially not that word because mommy will get really mad at me and then she might kill me and that wouldn’t be good because -”

“Petey, do _you_ say bad words?”

Peter shakes his head solemnly. “Never. I have never said a bad word in my life, actually.”

She seems displeased by his response. “You’re boring,” she announces. “I wanna say bad words.”

“Honey, please, I think mommy’s coming -”

“Fucking!”

Peter has to stuff his mouth into the couch cushion at the expression of abject horror that crosses Tony’s face as Pepper finally makes an appearance at quite possibly the worst time ever. 

She gives Tony a look. A _Look_. “Where’d you learn that one, sweetie?”

“Daddy said it!” Morgan chirps, fastening her hands around the hem of Pepper’s shirt, grinning. 

“Mmh,” Pepper’s Look transforms into a glare. “Figures.” 

“Daddy said it because daddy is a little stressed right now,” Tony says, shaking his head a little at Pepper’s half-amused, half-disapproving expression. “Daddy is dealing with - annoying - people. And - other bad things. General - crises - Pep? Help?”

Her half-glare dissipates just like that as smiles at him and Peter can feel the warmth from across the room and this is nice. _This_. It’s so nice it makes his chest ache. 

“Morning,” Tony says, pressing a kiss to Pepper’s cheek. “I’m a horrible influence. Also, I love you.”

“Love you too. I’ll make breakfast. Hi, Peter,” she says , turning her smile on him and every single atom in his body lights up with warmth and love and happiness and the million other things the Stark family exudes at all times. 

He can only smile back. “Hi.”

“Alright, sweetie, come with me,” she says, turning her attention or morgan and sticking out a hand. “Daddy has work.”

“Work is _boring_ ,” Peter can hear her whine as they round the corner and Tony settles back down next to Peter, smiling faintly. “I wanna learn more fun words…”

“Okay, anyways,” Tony says, rubbing his hands on his legs and, just like that, the blissful spell is shattered and they’re back in reality where Peter is a danger - no matter what Tony says - and they have to get out of here as quickly as possible. “I just - okay, relocation is fine. Probably for the best, whoever we go. But Peter - it’s been a crazy couple of weeks and I really want stability for him - for you - and I just don’t think a safehouse is gonna give us that. He needs to heal. He needs a break - we all do.”

“Look, okay,” Happy says in a low voice, eyes darting to the kitchen. “I’m with you, Tony. I don’t want to make the kid so anything more than he already has -”

“You know,” Peter interrupts, folding his arms and not bothering to keep the bite out of his voice. “It’d be really cool if we could stop talking about me like I’m not two feet away from you guys.”

With every second that passes Peter - physically speaking, at least - feels better and better - his healing is _finally_ kicking in, thank god - which only leaves more brain space to get angrier and angrier. 

Not at Happy or at Tony, really. Angry at Beck for releasing this video. Angry at this Ross guy for wanting to imprison him, for _believing_ in that video. Angry with the universe for, once again, refusing to give him a break. Especially angry with _himself_ for, similarly once again, putting everyone in danger just by reign here and catastrophically _fucking everything up_ again. 

Happy purses his lips, but he looks genuinely sorry. “Okay. I get needing a break, seriously, and I want you to have that, Peter. But Ross isn’t waiting for us - period. We don’t have time. The point is we - _you -_ ” He points at Peter. “- can’t stay here because I have the suspicion Ross is probably gonna start looking for you before the week is up and _you -_ ” He turns his finger on Tony. “- also can’t stay here because if anyone finds out you’re alive right now things are going to get exponentially worse. Severely exponentially.”

“So, where?” Tony frowns. “Safehouse?”

Happy pulls another face. “I think we should get out of the States for now. The more distance with Ross and the whole New York mob -”

“There’s a _mob?”_ Peter says - squeaks out, really. This just gets better and better. 

Happy’s pained expression increases in passion as he waves a hand again. “No, no, figure of speech. But, yes, I think we might want to take a vacation. Part two, for some of us. I was thinking -”

But they’re never going to hear what Happy was thinking because the man gets halfway through the next word before, suddenly, a blare of static echoes around the whole house. 

Peter flinches so hard he almost feels something inside of him dislodge. Beside him. Tony stiffens - hard. 

His spider sense - _Peter tingle_ , whatever - is suddenly crawling all over his body like a swarm actual spiders, screaming at him that _something’s wrong, something is very, very wrong._

Pepper and Morgan emerge from the kitchen. Pepper looks tense. Morgan looks a heart-wrenching combination of confused and scared. Happy stands in a heartbeat and moves next to them, positioning himself between them and the door. 

But it’s not coming from the door. The - _thing_ , the noise, is coming from the _speakers._

“Friday?” Tony’s voice is so tight it sounds three seconds from snapping and his hand reaches out to grab Peter’s knee, then his own hand, squeezing it hard. 

_Don’t let go_ , something inside Peter stars begging. _Please don’t let go, please, I’m scared, I’m so scared -_

Because something is about to happen. 

Something that’s his fault. 

“Friday?” Tony says again, voice urgent. “What’s up, girl?”

“I -” The familiar voice is lost in another blast of static that rips through Peter. His whole body is buzzing with fear. _He should’ve never come here._ “I do not know - sir - there -”

More static. Peter can hear Morgan’s faint whimpers as she presses herself into Pepper’s legs because she’s young and small and maybe doesn’t know what’s happening but she’s smart enough to pick up on the fear now written all over Tony’s face and she’s smart enough to know that anything that scares Tony is very, very bad. 

And he’s sure the fear is on his own face, too. 

“There is a - presence - intruder - ” Each of Friday’s words is sliced up, jagged. Like she’s fighting to get them out. 

_Intruder._

_No. No, no, no._

“Who?” he says and it might’ve been a whisper, might’ve been a scream, he’s not sure. The hand Tiny is holding is starting to shake. 

“You - your system, sir -” More static. What sounds like garbled voices, maybe. _No._ “EDITH -”

Another blare of static. And then -

“Hey, Stark family and friends,” says a cheerful voice over the intercom and Peter could swear that the floor opened up right then and there and sent him freefalling through a black hole filled with spider webs and glass shards and green smoke because it’s that voice, it’s _that_ fucking voice. 

Beck’s. 

It’s Beck’s voice and the horrible, plummeting feeling in him tells him that this _is_ real, there’s no debate about this. 

Tony’s arm jumps out, hovering in front of Peter like a barrier between him and the voice coming from the speakers surrounding the house. 

Like it will do anything, like Tony can do anything to stop Beck, like _any_ of them can. 

He’s in their AI. He’s in Friday. He has control of EDITH and he’s hacked into Friday, overpowered her and they’re all going to die and it’s all going to be Peter’s fault because none of this - absolutely _none of this_ \- would be happening if he hadn’t come. 

“Get the fuck out,” he hears someone - himself? - snarl. “You want me - leave them alone -”

“Mmh,” Beck’s voice sing-songs. “I don’t just want you, Peter, but it’s very cute that you think that. Though I will have a lot of fun killing you, don’t worry. You know, what you did was kind of a dick move, Peter, not going to lie. Leaving me there, all alone, injured - I mean, I could barely walk! Though maybe it’s a good thing you’re too much of a _sucker_ to actually check to see if anything is, you know, real, or something. Otherwise then I wouldn’t have been able to escape - and thanks for handing EDITH over to fake-Fury, by the way, that was _really_ sweet of you. Made things _so_ much easier. But, yeah, maybe I should be thanking you, Peter. Maybe -”

Tony’s grip his hand tightens. “Quentin,” he says and his voice is clipped, a controlled vessel of blistering fury. “Kill the dramatics, won’t you? I’m not getting any younger here.”

“You know, _Tony_ ,” Beck says, spitting out the name like a mouthful of acid. “I was really happy to hear that you were still alive. After all, Peter might be a gullible little kid who only made everything worse, but _you’re_ the reason everything’s happening in the first place. You two really make quite the pair, hm? And, you know, when your ducks are all in one pond, so to speak -” Beck makes a noise like a gun going off. “You know. I’m not sorry about this, by the way. I take that one back. Not sorry at all.”

There’s a cold, hard edge to Beck’s voice that the Peter from before the projector mishap thinks couldn’t possibly belong there and he swallows back another tidal wave of anger and fear and searing guilt. 

_(Scared little kid.)_

Beside him, Tony’s jaw is working. “Get out of my house, Quentin.”

“Sure, sure. I honestly just dropped into give a courtesy message, really.”

_Something’s coming._

Peter’s blood goes heavy and cold and he can _feel_ it _\- something is coming right now._

He squeezes Tony’s hand. He can’t speak. His brain is whiting-out with terror. 

_Your fault, your fault, all your fucking fault._

“What message?” Tony says calmly. His hand squeezes Peter’s back. He can hear the man’s breathing, shallow and shaky. 

_Something - something -_

“Oh, there’s a missile headed to your house right now. Should be there - now, actually!”

There’s a clicking sound, like a receiver being put down and _they’re going to die they’re going to die they’re going to die_ and Tony is jumping up, moving, yelling and Happy’s on the ground and someone’s crying and suddenly the hand Peter’s holding goes cold as the Iron Man armor activates and _it’s all his fault they’re going to die and it’s all his fault_ and he hits the ground and there’s a deafening rumbling sound and someone’s trying to pull him up with shaking hands and he stands and the rumbling gets louder and then there’s a crash, a bang coming from the kitchen and someone _screams_ and then the missile explodes and rips the world in two. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EEP! DONT KILL ME! :-)


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi quick thing this chap is a little ....intense ig beck is just a lil crazy and peter is hurt and it’s a tiny bit graphic not much but it’s there and if u are sensitive to stuff like that mayb skip this one n i’ll let u know what happens in the comments or smthin! stay safe<3

Everything is ringing. 

That’s the first thing Peter notices. That the world is ringing, the echoes of the deafening blast that just took place still bouncing around everywhere.

The second is that he can’t move.

He tries to shift away and the weight just traps him down harder. He doesn’t know what it is - feels heavy and rough and dense on the backs of his legs so he’s thinking something concrete-like - but it’s heavy and it hurts and he’s trapped. Just like with Toomes and the parking garage that fell on him and left him pinned down god-knows where surrounded by dust and rubble and water and his own blood. 

He can still taste it. Chalky dust on his tongue, filling his mouth and nose and lungs and choking him, barring any air from entering his body and Peter can feel panic starting to set in, slowly crushing his windpipe until he’s wheezing and the concrete _won’t move_ and he’s stuck again, he’s trapped and he can’t move.

They're all trapped because everyone else was there _too -_ it wasn’t just _him_ . Tony and Pepper and Morgan and Happy and he can’t hear anything over the ringing still bouncing around the space, he can’t hear any movement or breathing or heartbeats and his chest crumples like a soda can and he strains and strains and strains against the weight pinning him down byt he _cant fucking move_ and he’s trapped and this is all his fault; everyone is probably dead and _it’s all his fault._

Suddenly the ringing stops. 

The silence is terrifying. He can’t hear anything.

No calls for help. No breathing. Nothing but the faint creaking and crackling of fire burning up the destroyed wooden timbers of the house. Nothing but the still-present echoes of the blast. 

_They're dead_ , he thinks and sobs once. The movement rips through him, splitting him in half. _They’re gone._

He stops struggling against the concrete. Lets his whole body go slack, lets the weight of it shove him into the ground so hard he half-wonders if he’s about to shoot straight into it. 

_They’re dead, so what’s the point in struggling?_

Then something crunches near his head. Footsteps.

Something cold settles into his bones. The steps are too steady, too confident to be coming from anyone who was in the lake house - they all were within fifteen feet of a detonating bomb, for god’s sake - and the person isn’t talking, isn’t rushing to free him or anyone else and he could’ve sworn he hears a _laugh_ as the figure stops right next to his face.

He looks up and the cold feeling solidifies into ice.

The man looks a little more haggard, hair falling into his face rather than carefully brushed back. His eyes a little wilder, a little more unhinged than Peter remembers, but it’s him. Even dressed in the Mysterio armor - minus the fishbowl head - to boot. 

Beck. _Quentin Beck._

Peter blinks once. 

“Is this real?” is all he can say. The words feel heavy on his lips. He can taste blood - sharp and metallic and sour. 

Beck kneels down next to him, Mysterio armour creaking with the movement just a little. A gloved hand lays flat against the ground next to Peter’s face. 

He coughs. Beck’s face swims in and out of focus. 

“You are so fucking dumb.” Beck’s voice is soft, gentle - the same tone he uses to talk to Morgan whenever she’s had a nightmare, all softness and gentle enoucagement, all unspoken promises of it’s _okay, it’s okay, everything is going to be okay now_ \- but malice drips from the words, pooling around the two of them. 

Like blood. He’s pretty sure there’s some of that, too. He can feel it, hot and sticky on his face. Peter grunts. He can’t move, still can’t move and Beck is _here_ , he’s here and the house is destroyed. 

Everything feels fuzzy. Panic starts to wind its way around Peter's windpipe, crushing the air out of it like a soda can. He inhales and the sound is audible, harsh, grating. Nit enough, it’s not enough air, he can’t move, he’s trapped and it’s the parking garage all over again and Toomes is going to get the weapons and Peter’s messed up _so_ _bad_ and Mr. Stark is going to be so disappointed and -

No. That’s not happening. This is Beck. This is a concrete slab pinning him to the ground and his second home blasted o rubble around him and Mr. Stark isn’t going to be disappointed, isn’t going to be anything because he’s dead and it’s Peter’s fault agajn.

Above him, Beck’s face twists into a smile. 

“Just think,” the man whispers, leaning down to him. “about how differently this would’ve gone if you hadn’t come here.”

Peter shakes his head, body searing with protest. He has to - move, he has to get up - Tony - Morgan - Pepper - he has to find them. “Is - this real?” he repeats because he doesn’t know, he still doesn’t know and it terrifies him.

The hand moves from the ground to lightly caress the side of Peter’s face and he can’t so much as move enough to flinch back from it. 

“Why don’t you answer that for me, Peter?” Beck murmurs is that same, gentle voice. 

“I’m dreaming,” he slurs in response - because he has to be, this is too awful to be real, right? - and the hand tightens, leather digging into his temple.

“Are you?”

He is. Maybe he’s still back at is apartment with May and nothing has changed and Tony is still dead and so is Beck. Maybe he’s still in the grimy hotel room in Venice and he made it to the trip after all and there’s no elementals, no fire monsters, no Nick Fury, no Mysterio. Maybe he’s on the couch at the lake house and he hasn’t woken up yet and Tony’s still there, still fussing over him as he sleeps. 

None of this is real. 

It can’t be. 

“You still don’t know, do you?” Beck’s eyes are almost level with his. “You’re still too stupid to tell.”

“‘M not -” he starts but another wave of pain shoots up through him and he can’t see and everything is blurring together and he has to get up, to _move_ , to make sure everyone is okay but he can’t. He can’t. 

And, more to the point, he _is_ stupid. So, _so_ stupid. So stupid for bringing Beck here, for putting the people he loved in danger over and over again because he was lonely, because he was _scared_. So stupid for not moving fast enough, for not sensing the bomb sooner. 

So stupid for trusting Beck in the first place, for being fooled by his lies just like everyone else. 

“Tony took everything from me,” Beck says gently, smoothing his thumb across Peter’s cheek and it takes him a second to realize the man is wiping away a tear and, god, everything fucking _hurts_ so much. “My job, my work, my stability. And you -” The ridge on the fabric of the glove bites into Peter’s skin. “- took everything that I had won back. I was _so close_ to being what I was _destined to be._ So close! And you _fucked it_ all up, didn’t you? The people need a hero, Peter. Iron Man is _dead_ \- or at least he will be soon, if he’s not already. And who’s fault is that?”

He shakes his head. _Wake up, wake up, wake up -_

Beck presses down on his face, other arm pressing down on the concrete pinning Peter to the ground and a fireball of pain shoots through him and _Morgan Tony Pepper Happy he has to save them he has to help them this is all his fault_ and he coughs once before answering. 

“Mine.”

The pressure lets up. Beck smiles. “That’s right, Peter. And the hero can’t be the guy who killed Iron Man, right? No. The people need a _real_ hero. Not some knockoff in pyjamas. Not some _stupid_ _little_ _kid_ who can’t save anyone. They need someone like me.”

Peter presses his face into the ground. It’s a mixture of the half-destroyed hardwood floor that used to line the floors of the lake house and the dirt and rock underneath it, now. He can feel splinters digging into his face.

It’s destroyed. The floor, the house, the life Tony and his family so carefully built over the five years that he was gone and now he’s come back and _all he’s done_ is _destroyed_ what they have.

 _Should’ve never come_ , he thinks dully. Pain is pounding at him from all sides, the worst of it coming from his legs where he knows the concrete is. It’s dull and stabbing at the same time and his throat still feels too tight, too small, and he _still can’t move._

“You’re - crazy,” Peter hisses out to the ground. Beck’s hand tightens in his hair now, yanking his head back and something about the movement makes the pain in his legs amplify by seventy billion times and he can’t breathe around it.

 _This is what it feels like to die,_ he realizes. Not that crumbly, shaky feeling he had gotten up on Titan as he had felt every single atom in his body disintegrate and break apart one by one. Not back up on Titan for the second time, as he had heard Tony’s heartbeat disappear and felt a hole opening up in his chest more and more until he was hollowed out. It’s none of that. 

It just hurts. Everything hurts.

“I’m the hero, Parker,” Beck snarls. “Don’t you see? I’m the hero and I’m the _winner_ . Look how much you’ve lost. Look how _all of it_ is on you.”

_They’re dead, they’re all dead and it’s all his fault._

“How old is she, Peter?”

_No. Please, no, no, no, no -_

“Five,” he whispers to the mess of timbers and brick and rubble Beck’s aiming his gaze at. Because she is. Morgan is only five years old; Peter can remember her birthday party from only a couple months ago. It had been space themed and he had somehow been coaxed into dressing up like the planet Jupiter, much to May and Pepper’s amusement, Morgan’s undulating delight, and his pretend-annoyance.

Feels like years ago, now.

“So young,” Beck whispers in his ear. Peter tries to wrestle away again only for Beck to press his knee into the base of his spine, holding him in place between his armor and the ground and the concrete pinning him down and the burning pain that’s everywhere now. “Such a waste.”

And Beck’s going to kill her. If she’s not already dead, Beck is going to find her and kill her and kill Tony and Haply and Pepper and then May and Ned and MJ and anyone else who was on that trip - Betty and Flash and _Brad_ , for god’s sake - and they’re all going to die because Peter is so gullibe, so trusting, so _stupid_. 

They’re all going to die. The relization hits him, slams into him so hard it might as well have been one of the broken down walls surrounding them and the air leaves his body in a rush - _Morgan’s going to die, they’re all going to die -_ and he gasps in its absence - _please, please, they’re so happy, please -_ desperately searching for oxygen that wont come.

“Please, no,” he forces out. There’s something hot and sticky starting to drip into his eye. “P-please -”

_Not her, not them, they’re all innocent; please don’t be dead, please, please._

“Please _what_ , Peter?” Beck spits. “Use your words.”

Peter coughs again. Every atom in him is on fire and the world in front of him is starting to sway slightly from side to side. _His fault. All his fault._ “Please don’t kill them.”

The hand in his hair relaxes so that it’s presence is gentle, almost. Like when he would have nightmares and Tony would run his fingers through his hair until he drifted back off, whispering that everything was okay and that Tony had him and he was safe.

Except nothing is okay because the hand isn’t Tony’s, it’s Beck’s, and Tony is probably dead along with Happy and Morgan and Pepper and, if he’s not, he will be soon and Peter can’t do anthung about it because he’s trapped under a concrete slab with a lunatic kneeling on his back, holding him down just that little bit more and all of it is his fault.

“I’m not the one who killed them,” Beck says softly, hand moving to the back of Peter’s head, twisting it slightly so Peter’s looking back at him. Beck’s eyes are blue and green and something deep inside of them looks shattered. There’s cuts lining his cheeks and nose - remnants of the London fight, probably - and a bandage just above his eye. He gives Peter a smile that doesn’t come close to reaching his eyes and something inside of him goes very, very cold. “I think that’s on you, Peter.”

The Vulture was scary. Titan and Thanos - both times - were scary. All the bad guys and villains and criminals that have held him at gunpoint or tried to drop buildings on him or threatened to do everything from kill him to brainwash him to take out all his organs so they could study them ‘for science’ were scary when he was facing them

But this - _Beck -_ sends a new type of fear through him. A fear that’s sharp and jagged and slices right through the fog of pain swirling in his brain. A fear that leaves him feeling hopelessly, utterly desperate and alone in the face of a reality he’s not sure is real or not.

This could be a dream. The bomb, the lake house, the absence of heartbeats - all of it could be fake.

But it could all be real, too. Sickeningly, _horrifyingly_ real.

And Peter doesn’t know. He has no idea how to tell and that _terrifies_ him beyond words, beyond thinking. 

“I trusted y-you,” he forces out between jagged breaths that aren’t quite coming right, because he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what words could possibly combat the man in front of him and the aura of terror that burns around him and it’s _true_ , honestly. He _had_ trusted Beck. He _had_ seen Tony in him, in the way he smiled and laughed and went from gentle teasing to even more gentle comforting in a second. The way his eyes seemed to light up when Peter walked into the room, the way he just exuded selflessness and assurance and control in ways Peter could only _dream_ of being able to do. “I _trusted_ you.”

And Beck had taken that trust and shredded it. He had tried to kill him and Nick Fury in the space of five minutes. He had thrown Peter out of a building, shown him his worst nightmares, and gotten him hit by a train. He had nearly killed all of Peter’s friends, faked global disasters, and _again_ tried to kill Peter with an army of attack drones and a gun. And then he had framed Peter for all of it.

And he just didn’t know _why_. He didn’t know what about him made Beck feel so _comfortable_ with hurting him so much. He didn’t know what was so wrong with him that Beck wanted to kill him and everyone he loved, over and over and over again.

Beck gives a small sigh. In any other reality, Peter might’ve thought the sadness and guilt that came from that tiny exhalation was genuine, but he can’t. He knows it isn’t.

 _(He doesn’t, though, he doesn’t know what’s real and what’s fake and who’s dead and who’s not and where he is and what’s happening and it’s_ terrifying _.)_

“You did,” the man says simply, dropping his hand. Peter feels his cheek hit the ground and he doesn’t have the energy to raise it, to look back up at Beck. His vision is starting to blacken at the edges. “You did trust me. You’re just - stupid like that, I guess.”

Something inside Peter twists in time with the throbbing pain pounding around his body. He inhales shakily and everything keeps on hurting.

He’s so, so stupiud. So _naive_ , so _selfish._ He brought Beck here, got everyone killed, just because he didn’t want to be _alone_. 

So, so _weak._

_Stupid._

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles to the ground. Sorry to Tony, sorry to Pepper, sorry to Happy, sorry to Morgan - _five, she’s only five, she’s only five and they were so happy, so_ safe _without him_ \- sorry to May and Ned and MJ and anyone else who is going to care when he doesn’t walk away from this. “I - I’m so s-sorry…”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it anymore, Peter,” Beck says in that same gentle vouce - _just like Tony, just like Tony who’s died and died and died over and over because of Peter, because he’s so selfish and stupid and_ weak - shifting back a bit. “You should’ve thought about how _sorry_ you would be before you got involved. Then maybe this would be different.”

Then his hand is in Peter’s hair again and his head is jerked up again and he has time to think _I’m sorry_ once more before his face slams into the ground and his vision goes black again.

It can’t have been for long, though, because he blinks his eyes back open what feels like only five seconds later. He’s on his back now only one of his legs is pinned down by the concrete. The other one is curled awkwardly, knee pressing against his hip a little.

He exhales. His whole body is burning. 

He has to help them. He has to make sure they’re okay.

He’s starting to move, furiously ignoring the protests his body screams at him as he does so when he hears the first noise that isn’t the perpetual rinring and creaking or his and Beck’s voices and breathing.

“P-petey?”

Yes. _She’s alive_. He strains against the concrete and it’s moving, shifting off to the side and he can’t see Morgan but he can _hear_ her, _hear_ her shaky breathing and pounding heartbeat and she’s terrified and probably going into shock - _all his fault, all his fault -_ but it’s okay because she’s _alive._

Then there’s a laugh - chuckle, really, and every ounce of hope in him vaporizes.

Beck. _Beck_.

_No._

“Think of this as, like, a parting gift. A goodie bag! From you to me, Peter. I hope you remember that.”

_No - no, no, no._

Peter can hear someone yelling, _screaming_ and maybe it’s him, maybe it’s Morgan - he’s not sure. But he’s still trapped, still stuck for all his thrashing - for all his stupid, _useless_ powers; he’s still stuck and he can’t move and he can hear Morgan’s jagged breathing and she’s scared, she’s so scared and Beck has her and _he can’t get to her, he can’t -_

“Pete - Petey, wha’s goin’ on?”

He coughs. A single, jagged noise. Thrashes harder. Something inside him is snapping, folding in half and with each piece that breaks in his chest, another ounce of strength floods back into his limbs. One leg, just one leg - he’s done more, he can do more than this; he survived the _parking_ _garage_ , for god’s sake, he can be _better_ than his - he’s so close and he just needs Beck and Morgan to stay there for a few more second.

“Why - what are you _doing this for?”_ he hisses. The concrete is coming loose, he can move his leg a little more - stall, he has to stall for just a _few more seconds_.

Above him, Beck’s face twists into smile that makes him feel sick so he looks at Morgan instead. She’s fallen silent, eyes bright with tears and he blinks up at her, trying to smile. _It’s okay,_ he says with his eyes. _It’s going to be okay_.

“Payback,” Beck chirps and _he’s almost free, almost, almost -_ “Something you love, something Tony loves - two birds with one stone. Now, _you’re_ almost out of that little mess, so Morgan and I better be going, hm? See you soon, Peter.”

With one final wrench, the concrete falls to the side and Peter leaps to his feet - it hurts, it _hurts -_ and lunges right towards where Beck is, where _Morgan is_ -

He collides with nothing but a chunk of brick and wood, impact sending an explosion of pain through his ribs. His hands close around nothing but air and dust - no Morgan, no Beck, no nothing.

He failed.

He’s _failed_.

He doesn’t move for a second. Barely breathes. If he moves he’s pretty sure his body is going to finally snap and shatter in all the weak places and he’ll just fall to pieces right there, right on the broken chunks of Tony’s home.

Morgan’s home. Pepper’s home. All their homes.

_(Look how much you’ve lost.)_

Destroyed. Knocked to rubble. Because of him.

( _Look how_ all _of it is on you.)_

Morgan’s gone.

“No,” he whispers to the rubble, to the dust, to the blood in his mouth and eyes and the pain blinding him and the universe that stopped listening long ago. “Please - no -”

_(From you to me. I hope you remember that.)_

He - he has to fix this. He has to get her back, he has to _stop_ Beck from doing something like London again, from hurting innocent people for the sake of being a - _hero._

He has to stop him before he hurts Morgan.

_He has to._

So Peter stands - tries to, at least. The world sways around him for a second, the rubble warping and distorting around him and his left leg - the one that was really trapped under the concrete - is under no circumstances going to support his weight and every breath feels like he’s inhaling razor wire and guilt is fogging up his brain, making it hard to produce a thought other than _she’s gone and they’re dead and it’s because of you_ , but still he stands. 

He needs - suit - Karen. Scan. He needs to run a scan; he can’t dig apart this rubble all by himself.

_Can’t, can’t, can’t -_

He just needs the mask. Just the mask. Please.

He’s only half aware that he’s mumbling to himself, begging whoever’s still listening to _help_ . _Please_ , he says, over and over again as he staggers through the destruction, listening for anything that can tell him anything he wants to hear. That they’re alive. That Morgan wasn’t really taken. That this is just a dream, just a stupid, horrible dream. _Please._

He makes his way into what might’ve been the kitchen. His whole body is trembling, good leg barely able to support him now, too. _Please_ , he thinks, scanning the area. _Please._

There - half-obscured by what looks like a chunk of a kitchen countertop, covered in dust and a little torn looking. _There._ The mask. Head spinning and throat closing more and more with every passing second, he limps over to it and shoves the countertop away, pulling his mask free and tugging it over his face.

The lights flicker inside for a moment before turning on, a faint humming noise picking up and - she’s gone, she’s gone, Morgan is gone and it’s all his fault - and he gives a gasp of what might’ve been relief and pain mixed together - he’s not really sure anymore - before speaking.

“Kar - Karen.” His voice is wobbly. _Weak._ “Karen?”

“Peter,” she says, voice urgent, relieved. “You are okay. My sensors detected a severe disturbance, but they were cut off soon after and I could not tell if you were -”

He doesn’t want her to say alive because that just makes him think of Morgan being taken and everyone else still being trapped and hidden and _then_ he feels like passing out again, so he cuts her off. “I’m - okay. I need - lifeform scan, now, please - looking for three people - two men, one woman, _a-alive_ , please -”

The mask cools around him a little, the change in temperature slowing him down a little and stopping his panic. A little. He stands there, chest heaving as the sensors in the mask flash and blink too fast for him to understand what’s going on. Then the movement pauses and three red outlines in the shape of collapsed people burn onto the screen.

“Three lifeforms have been detected within the vicinity, Peter.”

“Are they - “

_He can’t, he can’t, he can’t -_

“Heartbeats detected, Peter. They are alive.”

Relief so strong it almost bowls him over washes through him. He presses a shaking hand to his mouth and inhales. 

_Save them. C’mon, Spider-man, save them._

“Gotta - gotta get them - can you -”

He’s barely making sense, but she understands. Thank god for Karen. 

“Would you like me to find the most optimal way to get them to safety?”

He jerks his head. “Y-yeah. And I - I need somewhere - safe - we can’t stay here.”

“I have put up the methods for freeing the three individuals from the rubble on your screen, Peter. Simply follow the step-by-step guide; from what I can tell, it should not be too strenuous of a process. I will get a plan for what to do next sorted. Okay?’

Gentle. She’s so gentle. Peter wants to cry.

He doesn’t. Can’t.

Karen’s rescue paths are a lifesaver. He clears what he can of the rubble from the place where Tony and Happy are located - they ended up next to each other before starting to free the two men. He gets Happy our first, pulls him out from half-underneath what looks like the remnants of a bed frame and lays him down in the clearing he’s made. 

His hands are shaking so hard he almost drops him. 

Next Tony. He’s half hidden underneath a pile of bricks, just a chunk of the helmet and his legs visible to Peter. He clears everything as gently as he can, trying not to disturb the man underneath. 

Like he’s sleeping. Just like he’s sleeping. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers as he wraps his arms around Tony’s shoulders and legs, hoisting him up, bridal-style. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

He lays him down next to Happy. They eyes of the Iron Man armor glow up at him, white and hollow and emotionless and they remind him just a little too much of Berlin and the vision and the spiders and the headstone and the thick, choking smoke and Beck’s taunting voice saying _maybe if you were good enough_ over and over and over. 

His cheeks are wet as he moves over to free Pepper. His hands wont stop shaking and they just shake harder as he looks at her, sees her neck at that weird angle and her arm at an even worse one and it’s definitely broken and it’s definitely going to hurt and it’s all his fucking fault. 

_After she was so nice to you all those months,_ a voice inside him sneers as he brings her over to the rest. _All of your_ shit _she put up with. You’re not even_ family _and she still did it, and_ this _is how you repay her? Pathetic._

He sets her down next to Tony and turns to the rubble to spit blood. 

_That can’t be good._

Peter sits. Heavily. Places his head in his hands and just keeps it there, pressing his hands down on his eyes. Maybe if he does that hard enough he’ll make himself wake up from this nightmare. Maybe the pressure will shock his stupid brain back into activation and the illusion around him will shatter and he’ll be back in the living room with all four walls upright and Morgan and Pepper in the kitchen and Tony in front of him. 

“Peter,” Karen says. Gently, still so gently. 

_You don’t deserve this._

“Yeah?” he says, not moving. He can’t. If he so much as breathes in too hard his insides feel like they’re on fire. 

“I believe medical attention is required for everyone. There is a private jet owned by Mr. Stark located in a hanger very close to here that has a med bay that will suffice in treating any injuries. I believe this is the best course of action to take as of now.”

He nods. Maybe. Maybe his head is just slipping. “Call - call it. No one - will know, right?”

“No one.”

He sits and waits. Unlocks the Iron Man armor and watches it fold itself back up into a bracelet, resting nearly on the ground. Tony’s shirt - a faded AC/DC Fly on the Wall Tour shirt - is peppered with holes and stained a dark reddish-brown in places. One of Happy’s eyes is blackening. Pepper looks for all the world like a corpse and he keeps having to ask Karen if she’s still breathing to keep his panic down. 

His hands shake. His leg, shoulder, back, ribs - all of it burns. 

He deserves it. 

“Peter,” Karen says after a while, snapping him out of his daze. “The jet is ready to commence landing.”

He gives the say-so. Maybe. Everything is foggy, distant, ringing like the blast again. He can’t focus on anything except for the fact that Morgan is gone and he can feel the absence like a jagged hole in the center of his chest and the fact that she’s only gone because he wasn’t - still isn’t - good enough to save her.

He’s going to have to tell Tony. And Pepper.

 _Fuck_.

He loads Happy, Pepper, and Tony onto the jet without thinking, carrying them as gently as he can. It should probably hurt - his body, all this movement, all this strain on his back and ribs and leg and the million other parts of him that are injured - but it doesn’t. He’s not complaining, really. 

The inside of the jet is cool and clean and the seats look more expensive than anything Peter’s owned in his life ever - except for maybe EDITH, but he doesn’t want to think about EDITH because then he things about Beck and Morgan and wants to cry all over again, so he shoves that aside. Expensive seats. Cool. 

Someone’s blood drips onto them as he moves the bodies about. He hopes to god it’s his.

He brings the three of them into the medbay Karen directs him to. It just as nice as the rest of the plane, with three hospital-like gurneys lining the walls. He places them each down in the bed - Tony in the center, Pepper and Happy on both sides because he knows they’d both want to see Tony when the wake up and Tony will panic if he can’t see them.

Tony will panic anyways, when he figures out what’s happened to Morgan and he’ll probably never want to look Peter in the face again but that also makes him want to cry, so he doesn’t think about it either.

Help them. That’s the only coherent thought he can manage. _Make this better. Help them._

So he does, with much instruction from Karen. He hooks them up to all the necessary IVs and fluids and pain meds he retrieves from the closet by the front of the room, Karen’s calm voice directing his every move. He does his best to wipe off the worst of the blood and dirt and grime from their faces, dresses whatever wounds he can see with gauze and band-aids and neosporin, forces sobs back down into his chest as he carefully detaches Tony’s prosthetic and lays it down next to him. He barely looks at their faces. His hands shake the whole time, keep shaking as he finally steps back from the beds and limps over to the seat in the corner of the room.

It sounds like Karen says something to him, maybe. He can’t really tell, honestly. There’s a weird rushing noise in his ears, like the ringing from after the blast only ten times louder.

The world feels like it’s spinning even when he presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. 

Everything hurts. Everything hurts and Morgan is gone and Tony, Happy, and Pepper are all hurt and it’s all his fault.

Another sob works its way out of Peter. The force of it hurts and he grits his teeth against anymore that might come. 

_Weak,_ says a voice that sounds like Beck’s. _So, so weak._

“I’m sorry,” he says to no one. A light above him blinks - Karen’s still here, then, thank god. “I’m sorry.”

_Iron Man is dead - or at least he will be soon, if he’s not already. And who’s fault is that?_

He can’t.

_Mine._

He just _can’t._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok..first of all let me say.....😗✌🏻..... SECOND OF ALL....i am so bad. the Worst! So MEAN to peter for no reason....and you thought the last chap was bad....
> 
> also i think beck is one of the more legitimately terrifying villains in the MCU bc he gained peter’s total trust and admiration and love and then threw it in his face and that’s just so scary for peter so tried to emulate that here....
> 
> also this whole thing is like medically inaccurate ik none of them would’ve realistically survived that blast def not the ppl who didn’t have the iron man armor protection but for the sake of the plot they did ok!! ty
> 
> ALSO THE MORGAN THING WAS THE BAD IDEA I MENTIONED EARLIER IM SORRY DONT KILL ME PART 2 :-)


	8. VIII

Peter stays seated for about five and a half minutes before the tail end of the adrenaline rush that’s been burning around his body crashes into him and he physically can’t sit for another second without feeling like he’s going to explode. 

He can’t pace - his leg is still far beyond being able to take more than half a second of pressure before he half-blacks out with pain - but he can do an aborted limping circle around the main room of the jet, which he does. 

There’s definitely blood dripping into the seats now and, at any other point in time, he would’ve been panicking about Tony or Pepper getting upset about it. 

But, of course, they won’t give two shits about the blood. The fact that Peter let their only daughter get taken by _Quentin fucking Beck_ , though. 

He pushes that thought aside. No time, no time - he has to make this right. He has to keep fixing it, and it won't be fixed by him aggressively limping in circles, bleeding everywhere, and feeling sorry for himself. 

_(Even if it’s all his fault._ Especially _if it’s all his fault.)_

He swallows. He needs resources, searches immediately. He needs to find Beck, find where he’s been hiding and what he’s planning to do with EDITH. He needs to find Morgan. He needs medical supplies - painkillers, a brace for Pepper’s arm which looked, last time he checked, relatively broken, ice bags, the whole lot. He needs -

_He needs things to be okay, to he fixed. He needs everything to stop going so wrong as soon as possible._

“No,” he half-spits out, dragging himself furiously in the direction of the front of the plane. “You need to - fuck - _fix this.”_

His whole leg feels like it’s been smashed repeatedly by a metal bat - which, essentially speaking, it has, just the metal bat was larger and wall-shaped and made out of concrete - and his whole torso just _hurts_ beyond description at this point and, god, this is bad, this is so bad. 

“Man - up,” he growls to himself - because, really, things have been fucked up enough recently that he’s probably warranted a little talking to himself - and collapses into a chair. “Karen?” he says, mostly out of instinct at this point. She won’t answer. She’s not in the plane. 

But the console at the front of the jet blinks on and a familiar voice responds with, “Hello, Peter,”

Peter feels the corners out his mouth twist upwards. _Or maybe she is._ “H-hi.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I don’t -” _No_ . He shoves whatever honest statement he was about to say down. _Focus_. “I’m okay, I - can we - go? Go up, I mean? I just - people are probably gonna come soon because the bomb was - loud and I don’t - don’t wanna be found -”

“Ascending currently, Peter. I will put the jet on autopilot until you or anyone else wishes to take manual control. There is enough energy on the jet to currently sustain approximately five hours of flying, but I would advise not remaining in the air for that long without a specific destination in mind. Continual circling will eventually look suspicious and likely pop up on the Secretary of State’s radar.”

Peter feels himself nod as the floor beneath him shudders a little. “Yeah - yeah. Don’t want that. So - where - where’s Ross looking? What’s his area of control right now?”

“Saying as he is the Secretary of State, his control stretches throughout the United States -”

“Right, yeah, because that’s how the government works, dumb question. Yeah. So - government safe houses, off the list. Cool. There’s - you said I had access to Avengers bases, yeah? Can - could we go there?”

There’s a pause before her response that is really not reassuring. “Potentially. However, as part of a prior agreement between SHIELD and the Avengers, many of the safehouses are shared between the two organizations and, since the general disbandment of SHIELD a few years ago, many of these bases have been absorbed into partial governmental control. While I doubt Secretary Ross is actively monitoring all of them, it would be risky for you to show up at one of them and stay for an extended amount of time. He is bound to notice at some point.”

 _God_. This just gets better and better. “How - he monitors them through, what, sensors? Video footage?”

“Essentially, yes. It’s an advanced security system, similar to the one set up at the Avengers Compound.”

“Hackable?” An idea is starting to develop in the back of his brain. 

“Given yours - and Mr. Stark’s, when he wakes - expertise with technology, yes. I can begin to take down the preliminary firewalls on my own - after that it’s a simple matter of reprogramming the security codes so the monitor system can be out on standby. However, again, I do not think it is a sustainable permanent location. Secretary Ross may not be actively monitoring each base, but his team will pick up the fact that everything is offline eventually.”

“Don’t need forever,” Peter mutters, tapping his fingers on the tabletop in front of him. “Twelve - twelve hours. That good?”

A light above him blinks in affirmation and Peter feels his face crack into the beginnings of a smile. This is okay. Well, it’s really, _really_ not okay, but it will be. He’s going to make it okay. 

_Or you won’t and Morgan will die and Beck will do whatever he’s planning to do and it will probably kill a lot more people than in London and it’ll all be your fault,_ the voice inside Peter’s head sing-songs and he grits his teeth. Not helpful. Thinking like that is not helpful. He’s going to make it right because he _has_ to; he can’t wrap his head around a reality where he doesn’t. 

“Alright. Where are we?” he says aloud, firmly putting a lid on the undercurrent of panic and guilt he can still feel buzzing through him. _Save it._ “Still in New York?”

“Currently flying over the border of New York and Pennsylvania, Peter. The nearest safe house is approximately twenty minutes away, located just outside of Springville. Shall I set a target for there?”

He nods. “Yeah. Get the, uh - firewalls, mess around with those, too. Pull up the data systems for the surveillance program, too, and put those aside; I’ll - deal with them in a sec. Also - need a full sweep of the area, house included, once were in. Need to see if anyone weird has been in or out of it recently and, if so, who they are and what they’re doing. We’re also going to need to power up the databases the house has - need every resource we can get. Do you - maybe we should put Friday in the house, too? Combined databases, more resources - yeah. Yeah, I’ll ask - Mr. Stark when he - yeah. And - god, we need to start looking for Beck and Morgan - anything - _anything_ on them. Facial scans of everyone within a twenty mile radius - anything any surveillance camera has picked up - of the lake house and license plate cheeks on all the major roads leading to it - get identification on all of them, mark suspicious people, or whatever. We can use - SI satellites for that stuff, right? You - you’re Stark tech so you have access, I think, and if not I’ll - figure it out. It won’t do anything - Beck’s smart, wouldn’t take a fucking _highway,_ especially not if he’s supposed to be dead but - it’s a start. Oh, and see if you can get into the security footage from the actual lake house. Beck probably do something with EDITH to block it, but it’s worth a shot; maybe there’s a blip, or the - screening thingy he probably used can be removed, or -or something. And -” 

He pauses to inhale, realizing both that he’s been rambling and also that he probably made negative amounts of sense while doing so. _Also_ , he just gave Karen like fifteen different things to do in the space of twenty seconds. He winces a little. _Stupid._ “Am - am I making you do too much?” he asks, after a pause, familiar guilt resting heavy in his stomach all over again. He should be doing this himself, but he’s not, and it’s making him feel more than a little shitty when he stops to think about it. 

“I am programmed to be able to run over seven thousand upfront tasks and close to a ten thousand background ones. This is fine, Peter. I am happy to be helping.”

He does smile for real this time and manages to feel only a little bit guilty for it. 

_Your fault,_ says the age old voice that the kid refuses to stay down on. _How can you be_ smiling _when_ you’re _the reason all of this has gone to shit in the first place?_

Peter just grits his teeth against it. It’s not _wrong -_ far from it, actually, which is so much worse - but there’s _no time._ No time for any of that. 

Get to the safehouse. Get everyone inside and make sure they’re safe and healing. Find a way to call May and his friends and tell them what’s going on. Find Morgan. Bring her home. Do whatever the fuck has to be done to stop Beck from whatever he’s trying to do. That’s what he has time for now.

_You still have to tell them about her._

Peter exhales, pressing his head into the back of the seat. Yeah. Yeah, he does have to do that. 

_So young. Such a waste._

An image of her from the lake house, eyes wide and shining and full of too much terror for those of a five year old flashes through his mind. 

_Petey? What’s going on?_

He swallows. Focused. He has to stay focused. Morgan’s gonna be okay; he’s going to find her and bring her back and she’s going to be fine. _She’s going to be fine._

_But she’s still gone. You still lost her in the first place._

God, okay. He presses his palms into his eyes. _Not helping_. Thinking like that is not helping. It’s just making his chest start to compress again and the world start feeling like it’s folding in on itself and none of that will bring Morgan back, so he can’t pay attention to it.

He has a plan. He has an order of operations, he knows what he has to do. He’s going to fix this.

“Peter,” Karen says suddenly. Her voice is tinged with - something. Worry? “Mr. Stark is approaching.”

 _Fuck_. 

“Didn’t I, like, sedate him?” Peter says, a new bout of panic starting to rise in him because Tony’s here and he’s _awake_ and he knows, he _knows_ that Morgan’s gone and it’s all Peter’s fault and he cannot look the man in the eyes and tell him that he, Peter Parker, lost his _only fucking daughter_ to a lunatic wearing a fishbowl on his head. 

He can’t. He can’t, he can’t he messed up so bad and he can’t -

“You gave him a mild dose of morphine mixed with rozerem, a sleeping drug. I assume it has worn off now. Shall I let him in?”

Peter swallows. “I - I lost Morgan. His - daughter. I - I can’t -”

Because he can’t. He just can’t. 

“You did not lose her, Peter. This was not your fault. Mr. Stark will understand that.”

“He loves her _so much,_ Karen, so much. So does Pepper and I - if I hadn’t come, she would still be there - she -”

“Mr. Stark _wanted_ you there, Peter. So did Mrs. Potts. The understood what implications allowing you into the house could carry. They _understood_.”

He just shakes his head, furiously biting back another surge of grief and anger and weird, heavy sadness. “What if she’s dead?”

”It is very possible she is alive, Peter. It seems likely that Quentin Beck will use her as leverage of sorts, given his nature, and for thag purpose it would be most useful to him for her to be alive.”

He swallows. Thinking about that - Morgan in Beck’s clutches - makes his head spin. 

“Would you like me to tell Mr. Stark you are unavailable?”

Peter grits his teeth - _calm down; fix this -_ and shakes his head harder. _Fix this._ “No - no. Let him in.”

And she does. He doesn’t turn around as the door hisses open and footsteps sound throughout the room, doesn’t turn around as he feels Tony enter, his gaze aready burning twin holes through the back of his neck. He just pulls up the holograph screen and punches in a few things, opens up a text box of code being written by Karen so he can track their progress with hacking the base, and breathes.

Focus. Focus.

_She’s gone; she’s gone and it’s all because of you._

_Focus_.

“I hope you’re not wearing your prosthetic,” he says after a pause. It’s all he can say, all the words he can physically get out without his voice cracking in half. He coughs. “You - Karen picked up - trauma from the - the blast; said you should let the - let it breathe -”

“I’ve had worse.” Tony says without a hint of emotion in his voice. 

Peter stares at his hands. There’s blood on his fingertips. Dust and dirt and unidentifiable dark streaks coat the backs of them. He can still feel the rock underneath his hands, still feel them closing around nothing as he lunged to grab Morgan - nothing; how had that even happened? Where had Beck _gone?_ The illusions, the magic - all that stuff was supposed to be fake. People - real, non-magic people - can’t just disappear into thin air. That didn’t happen. 

Part of him doesn’t even care, really, how it happened. It’s not like it matters - except it does, probably, and it will cause issues in the future, _definitely_ \- no matter _how_ Beck left the scene, he still walked away and he did it with Morgan. That’s about as far as he can get in the whole caring thing right now before he starts panicking again.

 _You lost her_. _You failed._

“Really?” he says suddenly, desperately trying to shut his thoughts off and then he goes straight to being unable to _stop_ talking. “‘Cause - I mean, yeah, nothing can be worse than like, dying - or fake-dying, I guess - but I had a look at it, kind of, when you were out and it looked _really_ not good and - and I think you should - I think - I think you should maybe -”

“Peter,” Tony says, cutting him off. His voice is impossibly small and impossibly scared and Peter’s heart is fracturing along the edges more and more with every second that passes. “Where’s Morgan?”

Peter’s whole body feels like it’s burning. He curls his hands into fists, the lines of code flashing in front of his eyes blurring into blocks of green.

 _Oh, you know, she’s just been abducted, or something, by a lunatic who wants to kill us both and she could be dead - or not, and Karen thinks it’s the ‘or not’ on but that doesn’t matter jack shit nevayse she’s still gone and it’s my fault and I tried really hard to get her that_ also _doesn’t matter because it wasn’t enough and she’s gone and I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry._

“Peter?”

A hardness is creeping into Tony’s voice. Angry. He’s angry. At Peter.

 _Yeah, no shit, you lost his fucking_ kid _._

He swallows. He feels weirdly hollow now, like everything inside him has been scooped out and placed somewhere far away from him. Like if he moves or breathes too much he’s going to fold in on himself and, god, he really did lose Morgan, didn’t he? He really - _really_ \- did that? She’s really gone and he’s flying fucking jet to a SHIELD base and she’s just gone and nothing matters because she’s _gone_ and _Peter_ lost her and -

“She’s gone,” he says, voice silencing the tirade in his head with a snap. 

He almost wishes it didn’t. The silence that follows his words is deafening - louder than the explosion, louder than anything Peter’s ever heard in his life. 

He can hear Tony shift back fractionally, hear the hitch in his breath, hear the pounding of the man’s heartbeat. He can hear everything, almost _feel_ every single body change Tony’s hit with as the two words sink in. She’s gone. Morgan’s gone.

“What do you mean?” Panic lines Tony’s voice, thick and heavy and more than he’s ever heard from the man in his _life_ and this is - _god_ \- this is all his fault. “What do you mean _gone?”_

“Beck.” Peter’s throat is burning. He swallows. “Beck, he - he was there after the - explosion and he - I was stuck, I couldn’t move - he took her and then he just - disappeared and I couldn’t -”

His voice starts to shake and Tony still hasn’t moved - hasn’t _breathed_ as far as Letter can tell and grief is working its way up his throat like a ten-foot snake and he will not cry, he will not cry, no matter _how_ much of this is on him he will _not_ cry now. He takes the grief and slams it away, shoves the metaphorical box into the back corner of his brain and takes a breath in.

He doesn’t have time to cry. He doesn’t deserve the time to cry. He has to make this right - _now_. 

“She - she was alive. She wasn’t hurt.”

Tony’s breathing starts up again. It’s even. Steady. 

_Furiously_ controlled. The same way it is when Peter does something stupid, when he gets hurt on patrolling or when they have arguments and Tony’s desperately trying to reign himself in, trying to keep everything he’s feeling under lock and key. 

”Where are we headed?” Tony’s voice is flat. Expressionless. 

_He hates you. You lost her and she’s gone and he hates you for it._

“Springville. There’s - there's a base. Safe house. We - need supplies, need resources. It’s monitored by Ross, kind of, but I’m blocking their channels for a few hours -” 

“How long?” 

“Twelve. I - they’ll get suspicious if it’s down for longer -”

“I’ll get it sorted. We’ll need more time than that.”

And then Peter does turn around, fixes his gaze on Tony, who’s still standing in the doorway. 

His face is blank. Eyes are blank. Jaw is set hard, so hard Peter can see it trembling from all the way across the room. The man stands totally motionless in the doorway, gaze fixed somewhere vaguely above Peter’s shoulder. 

His cheeks are wet. Peter can see the tear tracks glinting in the light from the console and he can’t even remember the last time he saw Tony cry. 

His fault. _His_ fault. His chest feels like it’s caving in on itself and all he wants to do is run to Tony, to hug him, hold him, tell him it’s going to be okay and have the man repeat the same thing back at him. 

He doesn’t move though. Can’t, and it’s not because of the leg this time. 

“I’m sorry,” he says and it comes out all crumpled and broken-sounding and it’s stupid, so stupid because how on earth is _he_ justified in feeling bad now when it’s all his fault? 

He can’t tell how many times he’s said that phrase to himself in the past few hours. It feels stupidly self-pitying, but accurate, too. 

_Focus,_ his brain implores him. _Fix this. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and actually_ fix this. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again. _Please. Please look at me, look at me, tell me it’s okay, tell me it’s not my fault -_

Tony blinks once. Breathes out. “We’ll need more time,” he repeats, eyes now on the carpet. Something is radiating off him - something wound up to the point of shattering and cold and _broken._ “I’ll get into the system, get some fake data running for the sensors. You - just get us there.”

And then he’s gone. The doors hiss shut behind him. 

_Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry -_

“Kar,” he says, voice shaking - so stupid, so fucking _weak_ \- “Transfer the - the stuff you’ve done with the surveillance system to whatever thing Mr. Stark is using.”

“Of course, Peter. We should be landing in about five minutes. There is a clearing a very short walk from the house which I have selected to touch down in. Is that okay?”

He nods. “Perfect,” he says, not really hearing it. “How are Happy and Pepper?”

”In stable condition, Peter. Both are sleeping peacefully.”

”Okay. Cool.”

_Fix it. Fix it. Fix it._

“It was not your fault, Peter. Mr. Stark knows this. He is just upset.”

Peter just pulls up the footage Karen’s stares compiling - the satellite feed of everything around the safe house and the beginnings of the footage from around the lake house prior to the explosion. He presses play, and starts watching in silence. 

He doesn’t even try to believe her this time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAH so i had like eighteen crises abt the fic and the plot and everything while writing this so sszzzz sorry it’s not good there is going to be an actual plot rlly soon i promise not just angst😗✌🏻ty all  
> sm for sticking around tho the support has been Crazy also ty for not killing me yet ...love<3 
> 
> also ik tony and peter r both a little out of character...jus remember they’ve both been through some shit in the past day tony’s just lost his kid and peter thinks it’s all his fault!! so they gonna act a little weird remember ok...ty<3
> 
> ALSO! made a tumblr @tnyystark....follow Me if u wish<3....


	9. IX

Peter’s halfway through the compiled footage, still struggling to actually pay attention to any of it, when Karen announces their touchdown. 

“Cool,” he mutters, folding away the touchscreen and shoving his chair back. “Get the - uh, there’s nothing so far with the security stuff. Cloaking thing - probably some code that’s scrambling the sensors. Put it - aside. Deal with it inside.”

He stands up and immediately falls back down, sucking in a breath through his teeth.  _ Shit.  _

“How’s - how’s my - leg?” he asks to the ceiling, carefully keeping his gaze as far away from the leg in question. If how it  _ feels  _ is anything to go off of - which he really hopes it isn’t; it currently feels like it’s been put through a meat pulverizer - then it probably doesn’t look great and he’s not entirely sure if he can stomach seeing something like that right now. Not that he’s squeamish, but it’s been a  _ hell _ of a day. 

“Your left tibia has cracked in two places and broken in one. Your enhanced healing has made some progress in attempting to fix the injury, but, due to the emotional distress you are under currently, full attention can not be diverted to it.”

Emotional distress? Oh, yeah. London. The bomb. Morgan. 

He swallows. “Can I walk?”

“You can,” Karen says in the exact tone of voice that suggests he really, really shouldn’t. 

“Cool,” he says again, resting his forehead on the edge of the desk. His leg throbs in time with his heartbeat, hard and constant and surprisingly steady. “Awesome.”

“Would you like me to call for assistance? Mr. Stark is just exiting the safehouse; I believe he has already transported Mr. Hogan and Mrs. Potts inside and is returning to the jet now.”

“Just - tell him I’m - I don’t know -”

“Injured?”

“No -  _ no _ ,” Peter grunts, waving a hand at the ceiling. Karen can’t do that because either Tony will worry - which he really, really doesn’t need to make the man do anymore - or he won’t, and Peter’s not entirely sure which one would be worse. “Just - say I’m doing - I don’t know, reconnaissance? That’s a thing, right?”

“You are sitting with your head on a desk.”

“Helpful, Kar. Just -”

“Mr. Stark is entering the vicinity, Peter.”

“Jesus,” he mutters, squeezing his eyes shut. The doors of the cockpit hiss open.

There’s a slight pause. Then, “What are you doing?”

Tony’s voice isn’t accusing. Or angry. Or anything, really. Just the same flat, dull one from before. 

He wants him to scream. Cry, yell at him, tell him this is all his fault - do  _ anything  _ but give him the same empty gaze and same empty voice. 

But he doesn’t because he’s Tony and Peter’s pretty sure no one has a better handle on his own feelings than him. He just steps inside the room silently, the doors bidding shut behind him. 

There’s a pause. Peter decides not to raise his head. He keeps it there, pressed against the edge of the desk. It’s cold. Nice. The pressure is soothing in a way, keeping the weight of his head off his shoulders. 

He kind of wants to stay like this forever. Just - sit here. Breathe. Sleep. 

But, of course, Morgan’s still gone and it’s, funnily enough, still because of him so there’s not quite enough time to lie around with his head on jet consoles. Or worry Tony anymore than he already has. 

_ (Like he’d even worry about you now.) _

“Uh - recon?” he offers, still not moving. 

From behind him, Tony gives a disbelieving snort. “With your head on the desk?”

“Yeah, funny, Karen said the same thing -”

“Karen,” the man says loudly, cutting him off. His voice is still flat and dull, but if he tries hard enough, Peter can detect the undercurrent of something there. Something heavy and raw painful.  _ Your fault.  _ “What’s wrong with the kid?”

“Mr. Parker has a broken tibia, sir. I believe it is causing him significant pain.”

“Anything else?”

“Fractured ribs, head trauma, shrapnel damage, and high fatigue levels. Mr. Parker has not eaten or slept in over twenty four hours, now.”

“Jesus, kid,” Tony mutters, more to himself than to Peter, probably. 

He still doesn’t move, though. Peter’s grateful for that - kind of; at least if he says he is, it makes it feel more believable. He’s pretty sure that if Tony so much as breathes loud enough something inside of him is going to shatter beyond repair. 

Which can’t happen now because he  _ still has to fix this.  _ And he can’t fix it if he’s laying in the med bay, he can’t fix it if he’s -  _ resting,  _ or whatever; he definitely can’t fix it with his head on the desk. 

So he straightens up. Exhales, winces around his stiff neck, and reopens the console screen, pulling up the compiled footage from the lake house.

“There’s something here,” he says into the silence. He can’t tell if Tony is still there or if he’s left again. 

_ (He’s not sure which one he wants anymore - not sure what the two options make him feel either - but it’s not important so he ignores it) _

“Obviously, Beck didn’t get to your house by a car; we ruled that out pretty fast. The roads leading to it are totally deserted all day long. So I thought - hey, air travel’s pretty cool, pretty deserted. But -”

“You found nothing.” Tony says and then he’s at Peter’s side, leaning over his shoulder to peer at the console screen. “Naturally.”

Peter risks a sidelong glance at the man. 

“I created EDITH primarily as a defense system,” Tony carries on. His voice is still flat, but less so - maybe; maybe Peter’s just imagining everything again. It’s more like the tone he uses to explain things to Peter - nanotechnology, suit modifications he was making, weird theorems he and Bruce were trying to prove or disprove or create in the first place - during their lab sessions. Calm, neutral with just the faintest hint of interest and it makes Peter want to -  _ no. Focus.  _ “You know, first there was the Iron Legion - bust. Blew those babies to hell and back. Then Ultron - a severely more disastrous bust. And, yeah, probably should've learnt my lesson in regards to trying to, I don’t know, make something not-human that could protect the earth, but I - I had a bad feeling before the whole thing with Thanos part two. You know, inevitability, looming thoughts of death, all that. And when we were actually gearing up to fight the guy, I thought -”

“You wouldn’t survive,” Peter finished. Now it’s  _ his _ voice that’s fallen a little flat because Tony’s only been alive in his mind for a handful of hours. He had four months of grieving, of thinking he was well and truly dead, forerunning that and, even in the midst of this catastrophe, sven with every nerve in his body screaming to  _ just focus, please,  _ there’s still the pull in the back of his mind, the voice that whispers  _ but what if he really  _ didn’t _ survive? _

He shoves that all aside as Tony nods. His mouth is tight, eyes staring ahead without really focusing on anything again. “Yeah. And, honestly, EDITH has been a bit of a brain-baby for a long time - since, god, 2017? - so it wasn’t really making much from scratch. But I built it to protect the earth, essentially. The drones, the missiles, the surveillance - all of it was supposed to serve the purpose of protecting the earth. But, then, you know, I thought - why not make it multi-faceted? Why stop at just a command system? After all, you never know what you’ll need when you’re thrown got safe the world - or get an AR system to do it for you. That’s where, we’ll, everything else comes in. EDITH can do everything from - god, break into the Pentagon to digitally wipe people out of existence to hack any given data to create hyper-realistic illusions. I kept those things a little more - hidden, I guess. I didn’t want you - or whoever got it after you - to start, like, deleting people off the face of the internet off the bad, but all those things are there. Cloaking, illusion tech, signal scrambling - all of it. And Beck’s obviously tapped into all of that.”

Peter exhales. “Not good.”

Ineloquent response, but it still makes Tony crack the vague beginnings of a smile. “Yeah. Not good.”

“So - he scrambled the data from your surveillance system? Blocked - evidence of however he got there?”

Tony hums in agreement. “Probably. My system operated on an electromagnetic pulse system, but if you send out opposing signals at the right frequency, you can easily skew the pulses or make then look like they didn’t pick anything up.”

“You - you can  _ do _ that? That - that would have to operate on an almost atomic level though; the precision required is basically  _ unheard  _ of, not to mention the amount of coding and - and technological expertise that would he needed and -”

He breaks off, half because he’s rambling and probably making Tony want to slam his head back into the desk even more and half because the weight of just how  _ powerful  _ Beck is with EDITH in his hands takes that moment to slam right into him. It’s not like he didn’t already know that EDITH was, like, an advanced piece of technology or anything - it’s an AR built by  _ Tony Stark,  _ come on - but the weight of just how advanced it is is making his skin start to crawl. 

EDITH could easily have defended the world for the rest of his life. For the rest of  _ Tony’s  _ life. They could’ve been beyond safe from more things like Chitauri or Thanos or real versions of the elementals or whatever. 

_ Just had to blow that, huh, Parker?  _ the voice in he back of his head sneers and Peter has to actively stop himself from slamming his  _ own  _ head onto the desk.  _ Just had to take that away from him.  _

“So he can do - whatever he wants, basically, now that he has EDITH?” Peter just says, voice almost as flat as Tony. The waves of guilt are starting to lap at the corners of his mind and the steady pain throbbing from his leg is making it hard to think straight and - no.  _ No. Focus.  _

Tony’s response drags him back into semi-reality. “Basically.” His voice is tight and still fiercely restrained and for the billionth time Peter just wants him to be mad. To tell him that it’s all his fault. That he should’ve saved Morgan, he should’ve saved Happy and Pepper, he should’ve never come, he should’ve never given Beck EDITH - all of it. 

_ Focus,  _ he reminds himself, pressing his nails into the side of his good leg.  _ Freak out later.  _

“He - I mean, he has full control of EDITH right now,” Tony continues, still looking anywhere but Peter. He ignores how tight that makes his chest feel as the man carries on. “So, yeah. There’s some things that take a - a little more figuring out how to do, but I - yeah, he can do whatever. Basically.”

“But there’s failsafes, right? There’s - there’s ways to stop it?”

Tony snorts humorlessly. “You’re talking to me, kid; there’s failsafes upon failsafes upon failsafes. The problem is they’re not activated now because, in the eyes of EDITH, they don’t have to be. Beck  _ has  _ full control of it and EDITH isn’t built to, like, analyze people’s intentions or motives. That’s why it didn’t pause when you ordered that drone strike on the kid in your class. It has the capacity to, you know, learn and modify its behavior based off the person using it, but EDITH’ll never be sentient in the way that Karen or Friday are or Jarvis was. It can’t make human decisions or think, like,  _ oh yeah, maybe I  _ shouldn’t  _ kill all of these people for no reason,  _ you know. It’ll just - do whatever Beck wants, basically.”

_ Shit.  _ “So we can’t stop him?”

Tony pulls the console towards him and punches some things into the keyboard, frowning. “Not necessarily. Like I said, there are failsafes - I planned for the worst, really - it’s just activating them that’ll be hard. All the tech I’d need to do that is, well…”

He breaks off, face going dark, and another slew of apologies bubbles up at the back of Peter’s throat. He swallows them down.  _ Fix this. Apologizing won’t do anything now.  _

“Yeah,” Tony says. His jaw is tense. “So - again, I can work around that, but it’ll take some time. Potentially more resources than we have right now.”

“So, what are we gonna do?” Peter asks and immediately regrets it. This isn’t  _ Tony’s  _ mess to fix, its his. He should be the one in change, he should be the one who knows what to do. God knows Tony’s done enough 

“Well.” Tony stares vacantly at the desk, frowning still. “We - okay. Beck’s one-upped us in terms of resources for now. He has EDITH and we - don’t, basically. Again, I can probably dismantle EDITH from the inside - given time - but I’m not sure if time is what we have right now.”

“Is there, like, a way to see what he’s doing with it?” Peter asks. There’s half of the beginnings of an idea formulating in the back of his brain and he taps his finger on the desk, trying to force it to the front. “I mean, like, yeah, we can’t stop EDITH, but can we see what he’s planning with it and try and stop that? Like - like records,” he says, snapping his fingers. Tony’s gaze is fixed on him and it’s the longest the man has looked at him in what feels like years - even if it’s only been a day at most - but that thought makes his stomach clench so he shoves it aside. “Like a search history, kind of. I mean - if he’s using EDITH to, like, access your databases or log commands or - or whatever, there’s gonna be a trace of that, right?”

Tony’s face twitches a little, eyes clouding over as he thinks and the silence is too heavy, too long for Peter to just  _ sit _ there and watch him, so he keeps speaking, still tapping a finger on the desk.

“Like - take it down at the sounce, kid of. Because what - whatever Beck wants to do, it’s gonna be really big and really public and cause a lot of damage. He - that’s what he wants. Attention. He kept talking - when we were fighting - about making some sort of ‘Avengers level threat,’ or whatever. He wants what you have - recognition, fame, whatever. And - and so whatever he’s going to do, it’s gonna be really  _ bad _ , because that’ll give him the attention he wants, and I - I don’t want to let him - we -  _ I  _ gotta stop that, Mr. Stark.”

Tony blinks. Then, in a totally neutral tone, “I know that. And we will stop him. Each program Beck runs or command he submits leaves sort of a - a digital mark, kind of. EDITH is sensitive enough so that those mark-things can actually be - well, picked up through code lines and whatnot. It’s -  _ annoying _ work, to say the least, and probably not the most accurate, but it’s gonna have to be enough for now. I’ve bought us some time with the safe house, but Ross is still looking for you and the second he figures out that the lake house was - which he  _ will  _ \- he’ll just start looking harder. And I really don’t need you rotting away in the Raft on top of everything else right now.”

“So what are we going to do?” he asks again, furiously ignoring the internal protests that question causes. “With - with everything. Pepper - Happy - they -”

“They’re okay,” Tony interrupts. His face is going steely again, mouth forming a hard line across his face. “You - you did good, getting them help as soon as possible. Pep’s - Pepper’s a bit banged up. Happy’s - slightly less so. But they’re okay. Gonna - live, and whatever.”

Peter kind of wants to throw up, but  _ that  _ definitely wouldn’t be productive, so he shoves that urge down into the base of his stomach. He has to fix this - he has to fix this now. 

“Okay,” he mutters as the walls of the plane spin a little around him and,  _ wow _ , his leg is  _ really  _ not feeling good. “I can - I can help them, and stuff. Our suits, too - they need some work. Some fixing. I can do that, too, if you wanna - do the whole search-history thingy.”

Tony’s hand hovers behind the screen before he flips it down, shutting it off. He sighs fractionally, the sound somehow still the loudest thing Peter’s heard all day. 

He just really, really wants Tony to look at him. He really wants Tony to tell him that it’s not his fault. 

_ (Or that is; he just wants Tony to tell him  _ anything _ at this point.) _

“If I had - known that he - that this would happen,” Peter says in a voice that is impossibly small and shaky and  _ he cannot cry right now because this is all his fault and he just  _ cannot  _ cry.  _ “I wouldn’t - would’ve never come, Mr. Stark, I would’ve never come. I just - I thought it was safe. I thought - I  _ didn’t _ think _ \-  _ and she’s gone and I’m - I’m gonna get her back. I’m gonna - fix this, Mr. Stark, I promise and things are gonna be okay and -”

_ And please look at me. Please say it’s okay. Please just look at me.  _

“And I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry.”

_ Sorry doesn’t cut it.  _ He can almost hear Tony’s words from the ferry disaster echoing around his head, almost  _ taste  _ the tangible disappointment and anger and worry and fear that had flooded off the man in waves during their argument. He can almost see the words written on Tony’s face now as he rests his hand on the back of the now-closed screen. 

It’s shaking. 

_ (And who’s fault is that?) _

“Tony -”

“Can you walk?” the billionaire interrupts swiftly, cutting off whatever the fuck Peter was about to say next; whatever underwhelming apology he was going to attempt that time. Tony’s face is still blank. 

_ Please look at me.  _

“Karen?” Tony demands, flicking his gaze up to the ceiling. The speakers crackle above them for a second before she responds in a tone of concern so abject it takes every single ounce of self control Peter has to not burst into tears right then and there. 

“I would advise against it, sir. Sustained pressure could worsen the break and risk the potential of the bone breaking through the skin. An injury of that magnitude would be challenging for Peter to recover from currently, as, from my vitals scans, his enhanced healing is severely stunted right now.”

“I’m fine,” Peter interjects because he is -  _ has _ to be, at least. “I can walk.”

Tony huffs a little. The noise sounds somewhere on the spectrum between vaguely annoyed, tired, and some other heavy emotion Peter doesn’t want to wrap his head around right now. “And I’m Captain America. You’re not walking on that.”

“I -”

“Don’t argue right now, Peter, seriously. Just - don’t.”

Maybe it’s the ever-present pain blossoming from his leg that’s making it hard to think straight, maybe it’s the hardness in Tony’s voice that he’s not sure if he’s ever head before, but Peter stops arguing. He clamps his jaw shut with a snap and fixes his gaze on the corner of the room. 

_ Your fault, your fault, your fault - _

Something beside him shifts and then a hand extends out above him. Tony’s. Still shaking. 

“C’mere,” the man mutters, eyes on the floor. “Let’s get you inside. I’ll start on the search history. You can do whatever you need to do with the suits after you sleep for a while, okay?”

He sounds gentle now, and it really, really makes Peter wan to cry. 

“I’m sorry,” he just whispers, taking Tony’s hand. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Tony’s mask slips and, for just a second, he looks tired. Not angry, not disappointed, not murderous. Just so, so tired. 

Somehow that’s even worse. 

The man pulls Peter’s arm up and over his shoulders, taking the weight off his bad leg, and wraps his own arm around Peter’s waist, sort of holding him in place, pressed up against Tony’s side. 

“I’m sorry,” Peter whispers again, cheek smushed up against Tony’s shoulder. Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he just imagines himself saying it. Maybe it’s all in his head again.

_ (Sucker.) _

They walk into the safe house in total silence. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> almost posted the wrong chapter here...i am so dumb god bless<3...also again to reiterate ik tony might b coming off as very Mean here but pls remember like context he’s not acting without what he thinks is reason ok....that is all THANK U SM ALL OF U BY THE WAY...u are all so sweet and supportive i the most love for all of u<3


	10. X

_ Peter’s back at the lake house.  _

_ The rubble is still there, the walls exploded outwards in the way he remembers seeing. Brick and timber and dust coats the ground, piling up and up around him like snowbanks. He can feel the ground dipping beneath his feet where the crater starts as he walks.  _

_ His leg doesn’t hurt. Everything around him is tinged green.  _

_ He makes it to the center of the blast. There’s a blackened ring surrounding where he knew the bomb dropped, scorch marks extending outwards for about a foot.  _

_ He crouches down. Runs a finger over the mark. It comes back blackened.  _

_ Footsteps sound behind him and he doesn’t turn around.  _

_ He already knows who it is, really.  _

_ “Come back to mourn?” _

_ Beck’s voice is just how it was after the actual blast. Soft. Conversational, even. Like how they would talk when he was just Mysterio, just Quentin Beck from another earth in another universe.  _

_ Peter swallows. His mouth tastes of iron. “Is Morgan alive?” _

_ Beck doesn’t answer.  _

_ Peter turns.  _

_ The man is dressed in the CGI outfit he was wearing on the bridge. It’s just as torn up and stained as it was in London, when Peter had though he died, but the man is very much alive now. His face is peaceful, serene.  _

_ His hands are dripping with blood.  _

_ Peter swallows again. Everything is starting to ring. “Is she alive?” _

_ Beck looks down at his hands, brings them up closer to is face to study them. Dark circles drip down to the dust below him.  _

_ “So young,” Beck murmurs, almost sadly, and something inside Peter cracks down the middle. He can almost hear it. “Senseless price to pay for your actions, don’t you think?” _

_ Peter shakes his head. Beck looks back up at him and his gaze is cold now, cold and flinty and Peter can feel it cutting straight through him and he can’t breathe - the ai is getting trapped somewhere in the back of his throat - and is chest is collapsing in on itself and exploding out at the same time, exploding out like the bomb, like the lake house and Morgan is dead and it’s on him, it’s on him, it’s all his fault and - _

And suddenly he’s sitting up and everything is dark but the walls are standing. They’re solid grey and dark and the furthest thing from the warm wood paneling of the lake house, but they’re standing. 

Dream. It was a dream. 

Peter breathes in just to see if he can. The air flows around the lump in his throat and fills his lungs. 

In and out. 

_ Senseless price to pay - _

In and out. 

He looks around. The lights are off and the dark sky visible through one of the windows tells him that it’s the middle of the night, but, thanks to his improved vision - the spider bite was good for something, then - he can still see around the room. 

He’s in the med bay. There’s two figures lying beside him - Happy and Pepper - the monitors attached to their beds beeping steadily. Green and red lights from around the room blink at him. There’s a weird metal thing in the corner of the room that looks a little like one of Tony’s bots, DUM-E. It’s eye-like things are pointed at the beds -  _ watching them? _ \- and it’s emitting a low, constant hum. 

Something crawls over Peter’s skin as he kicks back the covers. He can’t stay here. He can’t do back to sleep; he doesn’t want another nightmare and, besides, he doesn’t have the time to in the first place. He has to start fixing this. 

Suits. Start with the suits. 

He studies his legs through the darkness before hopping out of bed. The broken one has been put in some sort of brace thing, thick black straps wrapping around his upper thigh, knee, and ankle. It looks complicated and a little rudimentary and definitely not something a random SHIELD safe house would have lying around and his throat closes for just a second as he realizes Tony probably built it for him. 

_ I’m sorry - _

_ No _ .  _ Focus _ . Peter grits his teeth and hops down off the bed, landing heavily on his good leg. Gripping the side of his bed a little harder than necessary, probably - judging by the faint creaking sounds the metal bars he’s holding are emitting - he presses his weight down on the broken one. 

It feels okay. The brace shifts with the movement and Peter realizes it’s probably designed to take most of the weight he puts on that leg, so the broken bones don’t have to. 

Tony did that for him. Tony -

_ Focus.  _

“Karen?” he whispers into the darkness. His voice sounds scratchy. 

“Hello, Peter,” she responds, equally softly. “You should be resting some more.”

“No, thanks.” He releases his hold on the bed - wincing at the visible dents in the sides - and half-limps over to the door. 

“Mr. Stark asked that I insist you remain in bed until the morning, Peter.”

“Cool,” he mutters, making his way out the door. 

“He also asked that I inform him if you wake up at any point, especially if you follow your waking up with attempting to leave the med bay.”

“Well,” Peter grunts, carefully opening the door and trying to step out without accidentally bashing his bad leg into the wall or letting too much light into the medbay and waking up Happy and Pepper. “Don’t do that, maybe.”

“In accordance with the Forty Winks protocol -”

“Didn’t I say to turn that one off, like, months ago?”

“You did.” Dissatisfaction mingled with a strangely motherly-sounding concern floods into Karen’s voice. 

“Then there you have it.”

If AI’s could sigh, Peter’s pretty sure Karen would’ve taken the opportunity to do so here. She just flickers a light above him briefly instead. “Mr. Stark is primarily concerned about your safety -“

He can’t help the snort that escapes him as he makes his way down the hall, cutting the AI swiftly off. Everything is brightly lit and the light is starting to give him a headache, but he ignores it firmly. He ignores the idea that Tony is still trying to look after him despite how monumentally he fucked everything up even harder, mostly because it makes the backs of his eyes sting painfully. 

_ Focus.  _

“Where are the suits?”

There’s another pause and Peter leans up heavily against one of the walls. His leg isn’t making him almost black out from the pain anymore, but his whole body is still aching. Standing isn’t that much fun, either. 

“In the room to your left,” she finally says, sounding as defeated as an AI can sound. “Mr. Stark deposited them in the spare machine room. He is going to look at them soon, I believe, after he finishes going back through EDITH’s command log.”

Peter grunts and, shoving himself off the wall, makes his way into the room in question. 

It’s a lot bigger than he expected, with a high ceiling and bright, white-washed walls. The suits are individually laid out across what looks like a giant surgical table, surrounded by a number of hand tools, discarded pieces of scrap metal, and stray bunches of wiring. A table lamp hovers over the red and gold pile of metal Peter assumes to be Tony’s suit, shining down on what looks like an exposed patch of wiring, the metal covering for it discarded somewhere towards the end of the table. A window in the corner of the room has been cracked open, the light breeze flowing in cooling the room down nicely and making some of the papers strewn across the table rustle slightly. There’s several things stacked against the walls that look like metal filing cabinets, sort of, each labeled in unreadable handwriting scrawled on pieces of masking tape. 

_ Tony’s _ unreadable writing. Peter inhales shakily. Either he’s been out for half a week already, or Tony’s ascended into a new level of manic productivity. 

Probably the second. Peter can vaguely remember the aftermath of the Civil War, when Tony had been so constantly stressed out and upset over a mixture of the Accords and the rogue Avengers biting at his throat at every available opportunity, he had built sixteen Iron Man suits in the space of two weeks. It’s a thing he does when he’s stressed - building - which is totally understandable from Peter’s perspective, because it’s exactly what he does, too. There’s something comforting about it, something that makes him feel calm and in control and competent that is all too useful when everything else in his life is going to shit and, apparently, Tony’s thinking the very same thing right now. 

_ Remember who’s fault that is? _ the voice in the back of his head sneers as he enters the room, leaving the door half-ajar.  _ Well done, you.  _

Peter swallows the voice down, the accompanying surge of guilt following it quietly. No time for self pity. No time for anything. He has to fix the suits. 

Peter limps over to the suits in question, frowning a little. Judging by the state of the assorted piles of metal and fabric in front of him, that might be a more challenging task than he previously assumed. 

Okay, maybe piles is an over-exaggeration, but the suits really aren’t looking great. Tony’s in particular. 

The first thing he notices, as he approaches the awkwardly splayed-out suit lying across the table, is the crater-like hole that’s been punched through the center of the chestplate of the suit. The surrounding metal has been pulled and warped upwards, jagged spikes of metal facing the ceiling like some sort of industrial flower. Half of the arm and shoulder covering have been blown completely off, exposing a tangled and melted mess of wires below. The faceplate is totally separated and has one of the eye guards missing, and half of one of the legs of the suit isn’t there anymore. 

None of that is even the worst part, though - even if the hole in the chest makes Peter’s stomach twist uncomfortably with the knowledge that Tony was literally  _ inside _ of that thing when it blew up like that. The worst part is undeniably the arc reactor - or what he  _ thinks _ was once the arc reactor. The diamond-shaped piece of metal is hanging awkwardly outside of its usual position in the suit’s chest, connected by a few charred-looking wires. The 

“What - happened to this?” he asks, hissing out a breath as he pulls the mangled-looking reactor from the center of the suit. It’s still glowing white like it always does, but the usually constant light is flickering, cutting out for a few seconds before returning just a few shakes too bright. The whole thing is burning hot in his hands and he can see the metal casing smoking a little as he pinched the top, turning it around in his hand. 

“The bomb let out several pulses of high-frequency energy waves when it detonated,” Karen explains. “Though it is hard to say with complete certainty, I believe the waves were some modified form of electromagnetic pulses. These pulses somehow managed to intercept the flow of photon and electron particles within the reactor which caused both a severe electron imbalance and high levels of gamma rays travelling at random around the core of the reactor.”

Peter hummed. “So there was, like, a vacuum? And the gamma rays just kind of went into it and -” He makes an aborted explosion gesture with his free hand. “- you know?”

“Essentially speaking, yes. The reactor core is not equipped to deal with such high frequencies of energy - indeed, I am not sure if it is possible to make technology that  _ is _ equipped to deal with that - so it essentially collapsed in on itself and then exploded outwards. The suit has several malfunction protocols that stopped Mr. Stark from being electrocuted, but that meant that the damage within the reactor was internalized.”

_ Yikes _ . “So it, like, kept exploding over and over again until the force wore off, basically?”

“Basically.”

Peter stares at the reactor some more. “There’s no fixing this, then, huh?” he finally mutters. 

“No,” Karen responds, voice heavy. “The explosion meant that, not only is the structural integrity of the reactor now severely compromised, but much of the internal wiring within the suit is damaged beyond repair. Even if you were able to reroute the power so that it could travel through the non-damaged circuitry, the reactor core is still unstable. The active parts of it left would shut down completely upon receiving any amount of power.”

“Or the reactor would just straight-up explode,” Peter says, tapping at one of the cracks. “This thing is barely staying together. One gigawatt and it’ll shatter into a million pieces. That could kill Mr. Stark.”

“Especially if he is wearing the Iron Man suit. Any explosion that close to his heart would result in unavoidable shrapnel damage similar to what happened to Mr. Stark in Afghanistan. Though he is recovered from that incident, it is unlikely his body would be able to handle another extended period of time using an artificial force keeping his heart alive.”

Peter grits his teeth. Yeah, they really don’t need that again. “Okay, so, new reactor. Put that on the list,” he mutters, moving the chair over to look at his suit. 

“You would like me to make a list, Peter?”

He almost -  _ almost _ \- smiles. “Figure of speech, Kar. What’s the deal with my suit?”

He can see  _ the deal _ pretty clearly as it is - the suit looks like it’s been through a paper shredder, basically - but there’s undoubtedly some sort of structural damage that he doesn’t really want to but definitely should know about. 

“Synthetic damage, mostly,” Karen informs him. “The fabric of the suit was damaged severely during the explosion. Since the wiring of the suit was built so close to the surface, this has also been damaged. I have already attempted to see which areas of the suit are functional, and there are not many. While those areas are still wearable, technically speaking, since they are offline it would be the same thing as wearing a t-shirt. It would offer no protection.”

Peter sighs, moving to pick up the two hunks of metal sitting next to the mask on the table that were probably once his web shooters. They look charred and dented and he can see some exposed wiring poking out in one of them, but still wearable. He’ll probably have to make more web fluid - not great, saying as the developed formula now requires ionized nanoparticles, something he’s  _ definitely  _ sure they won’t find here, but the old formula will have to make do. 

Even if the durability of it had started to wear off by the time he switched formulas and he kept falling out of the sky because the webs were snapping. Whatever. 

“Okay,” Peter mutters. “My suit - fine. I’ll live. Not - we can’t do anything about it now, anyways, right?”

An overhead light flickers in affirmation. “Correct,” Karen says. “While fixing it is a relatively simple procedure - all you would have to do is remake the damaged sections using a machine similar to the one on Mr. Hogan’s jet, which would only require a few simple commands, that technology is not currently available here. Though you potentially going to fight in just your mask is also unwise, Peter.”

She’s probably not wrong - he can remember the last time he fought something underdressed in a wave of blistering heat and crumpling metal and sand and blood dripping into his eyes and thinking about that makes him want to pass out - but, as she said, there’s nothing he can do about it now. The main issue is Tony’s suit, specifically speaking, the arc reactor. He turns back to it, running a finger along the jagged edges where the metal’s warped and been blown half-off and frowning a little. 

Peter drops the web shooter and turns back to Tony’s suit. “Okay,” he says slowly, dragging the pad of his thumb across the chest of the suit and stopping it around the hole where the arc reactor should sit. “Okay. We - we gotta fix this reactor. How - who - is there somewhere we can get those resources? I’m sure there’s, like, a car somewhere in this house which I can take, or - or the jet, or something. I just -“

“The arc reactor is still not publicly dispensable technology, Peter. Those who know about it and have - or had - the materials to reconstruct it have either been imprisoned for their improper use of it or are currently working for some SHIELD, government or Avengers-affiliated organization and it is unlikely we would be able to use any of their resources, given your current situation.”

Peter shakes his head, pressing his thumb down on one of the tears in the metal.  _ No. Not good enough _ . “There’s gotta be something. People - people are smart. It’s been years - over a decade - since Tony made this. Some - someone’s gotta have something like it we can use.”

He sits back in the chair, exhaling hard. His thumb is burning a little where it came into contact with the metal and his brain is moving on overdrive, way too fast for him to keep up with it. It’s making his head pound even more and his leg is starting to ache with renewed vigor and,  _ god _ , he’s so tired. 

He doesn’t know how to fix this. He doesn’t know what to do. 

_ Just fix it, _ the voice ever implores him.  _ Fix it or she’ll stay gone and Beck will - _

“You hooked up to SI satellites still?” he asks suddenly, snapping his eyes open -  _ had he closed them? _ \- and staring ahead as the ceiling swims into focus. The vision of the dream starting to replay in the back of his mind cuts off abruptly and he relaxed just a little at that. An idea forming slowly in the back of his head. 

“I am,” Karen confirms. 

“Okay,” Peter says again, blinking. “I want a full scan of everything in the States - east coast at the very least. Look for something that has the same composition, function and output of energy as the reactor - give or take, like, couple gigawatts. If it’s too much, it’ll blow the suit and - yeah. If it’s too little, suit won’t work. Look for anything - developed technology, raw materials, whatever, but developed if you can. Doesn’t have to be the exact same structure as the reactor, just similar energy output and similar enough so that it won’t take too much rewiring of the suit to hook it up. We need - it’s a temporary solution, right? I - the fight - or Tony’s part of it - is gonna be quick. I just need it strong enough so he can get off the ground and, like, not die. Is - is that okay?”

“Of course, Peter. Running a search now.”

He nods. “Okay,” he says for the billionth time, because maybe if he says it enough things will actually start being okay, even if they are, at the present moment, very far from okay. Especially in terms of progress; as far as it goes, he’s made a frustratingly small amount of it. The suits are duds, for now. The reactor will kill Tony if he tries to use it again. Beck is nowhere to be seen, Morgan is still gone, Happy and Pepper are hurt, and Tony still hasn’t made eye contact with him for longer than a split second. 

Other than that, nothing. He’s supposed to be fixing this and he’s come up with nothing. 

“What’s - what’s Tony doing?” he says into the silence. Because, what the hell, it’s not like  _ he’s _ doing anything useful over here on his own; he might as well see what Tony is.

“Mr. Stark is in the lab next door. I believe he is still attempting to see what Beck is using EDITH for.”

“Is he -“ Peter starts, then stops immediately after. He has to do something without turning to Tony. He has to make progress by himself first, get a concrete plan to show to Tony so he doesn’t have to worry about doing anything himself. “Never mind. How’s the scan going?”

“I have picked up a few energy sources that match your specifications, Peter. The ones that seem to have energy outputs the most like the arc reactor from Mr. Stark’s suit - and the only ones that have this, in fact - are several, relatively identical sources located in Tennessee.”

Peter frowns.  _ “Tennessee?”  _ he echoes. Who on earth in Tennessee would have a bunch of near-copies of the arc reactor just laying around? 

“Tennessee,” Karen repeats. “Rose Hill, southern area of town, specifically speaking. While the satellites can only see so much, it seems that the sources in question emit nearly the exact same type of energy as Mr. Stark’s reactors do. Not only that, but they all seem to be built off the same system of photon-electron collisions.”

“So - what - they’re the same? Like, exact same?”

“Not exact. There are fluctuations in the energy outputs from Tennessee that suggest someone has tampered with the reactors, to an extent. Some appear to have been rewired completely, some have had their circuitry changed, some seem as if they have been taken apart and put back together.”

That really doesn’t sound good. Having four arc reactors is one thing - and a mildly concerning one at that. Having four arc reactors and somehow being able to dismantle them, reroute the wiring, put them back together, and have them be totally functional is a different one entirely. “The - whoever has these - are they, like, trying to build something with them? A - weapon, or something?”

Because, honestly, the last thing he needs now is to figure out there’s some frank hiding out in a garage who’s somehow managed to replicate Tony’s reactor technology and is now trying to build a bomb out of it, or whatever. Even encased in top-of-the-line protection technology, volatile reactors can still do a lot of damage - the still-smoking hunk of metal on the table in front of him is perfect proof of that. An open bomb built using arc reactor principles of technology would be - bad. Just - really bad. 

_ Maybe it’s Beck _ , he thinks, and the realization would’ve made him laugh if it weren’t for the fact that it probably is Beck, knowing his luck at this point, and there’s absolutely nothing funny about anything that’s happening now. 

“It seems that the sources are standalone, Peter. So, no, I believe they have not been used to construct anything else for the time being.”

He relaxes fractionally. No Beck running around with arc reactor bombs, then. “Cool.” He swallows. Then, “Do - do we know who the person who has them is? Like, who they are, and stuff? Maybe we - I don’t know - any chance we can, like, ask them nicely for one, or whatever?”

“The satellites are not able to detect the exact identity of the resident, no. My best advice would be to inform Mr. Stark -“

“What’s your second-best advice, then?”

It’s half a joke, half a genuine question, and the joke part falls impressively flat.  _ It’s not his job _ , he reminds himself firmly, waiting for Karen’s response.  _ This isn’t his mess to fix.  _

“Peter,” the AI begins and Peter can almost  _ feel _ her heaving an internal sigh at him through the speakers. At any other point in time, he would’ve laughed at how long-suffering she sounds. “Mr. Stark wishes to help you. He does not mean for you to do all of this on your own. If you have found useful information, he would want you to tell him so that he can help you.”

“I blew up his house,” Peter says flatly, closing his eyes again. His head is pounding now. “And I got his daughter kidnapped. I did that, Kar. And I just - I really don’t want to make him do anything more right now. I just - I have to do this myself. I gotta - make this better and I gotta do it alone because I - you know, fucked everything up. And that sounds so stupid and, like, self-pitying, or whatever, I just -“

His voice is starting to shake a little. He swallows again and slams the lid down on whatever feeling is starting to crawl up his throat. No time. _ No time _ . “I just gotta fix this myself, you know? I just - I have to.”

There’s a pause and the silence is way too loud and too heavy and he just can’t sit still even if his leg feels like it’s about to fall off his body, so he stands up, picking up one of the web shooters and turning it over in his hands. Not too bad, really. Just the control panel that’s been fried to hell and back. Systems are probably offline, too, if the pulse from the blast had the same effect on his tech as it did on Tony’s. 

He knows Karen’s going to contest what he’s saying, he realizes as he awkwardly paces, picking at the exposed wiring, trying to clear away some of the ash and dust. He knows and - and it’s not -  _ god _ . Tony’s angry and it’s  _ okay _ that he’s angry and it makes  _ sense _ that he’s angry because Peter was the only one who had a shot at saving Morgan and keeping her away from Beck and he didn’t do that. Peter was the only reason - or at least the biggest one - why Beck blew up the house in the first place. And Tony is an endlessly patient and endlessly forgiving person - Peter knows this better than anyone else, really, what with his  _ insurmountable _ number of fuck-ups he’s had since knowing the man - but he’s angry, and that’s  _ okay _ . 

Except it isn’t, it isn’t okay at all. It makes total sense, sure, and it’s nothing Peter could come  _ close _ to faulting him for, but it still doesn’t feel okay and Peter’s painfully torn between miserably accepting Tony’s coldness and anger and getting on with fixing things and making Tony stop being angry, making him forgive him. 

_ (Even though he doesn’t deserve it. Not even close to doing so.) _

And being torn  _ sucks _ because then he doesn’t know how to act be he can’t think straight and just fix all of this like he solid. And, regardless of whichever path he decides to go down, the anger just  _ hurts _ so fucking much. That’s the bottom line, really. It hurts that Tony won’t look at him, won’t come near him, won’t so much as breathe in his direction unless he absolutely has to. It hurts to look at Tony and see the wash of pain and fear somewhere in his eyes and be reminded all over again that that’s because Morgan’s gone and that’s because Peter. It hurts to bounce ideas off of him because everything is just wrong now and it’s because of Peter. 

And he just wants to fix that. He just wants everything to stop hurting and he wants to make it stop by himself, because the off-the-rails irrational part of him has somehow convinced him that that’s the only way Tony will forgive him for fucking things up in the first place. 

And he just really doesn’t want anyone else to get hurt. Really, really doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want Tony to put himself on the line for Peter - or for Morgan, really. 

Peter stops pacing and opens his eyes again. The ceiling is high and arching as ever but a part of it feels like it’s crushing down on Peter, pinning him to the ground and squeezing the air out of his lungs. That’s probably just guilt, really, but just standing here and thinking is making his skin start to crawl. He has to do something and getting the reactors may be pointless, especially since a part of him has already made up his mind that, whenever the find Beck, he’s going alone, but it’s still something. 

Karen hadn’t responded to his earlier sentence - probably noticed that he was too busy pacing around and wallowing in an exciting mixture of self-pity and self-hate to pay much attention - but another light flickers above him as he turns his gaze back to the speakers. 

“Peter,” she says softly - too soft, too nice, too gentle. “Are you okay?”

He swallows. No time. 

_ Fix this.  _

“Can we send a message to whoever has the reactors?“

He sits back down at the table and pulls open one of the screens someone - Tony, probably - had left lying there. A map of the USA pops up in blue and white, a red dot blinking where the reactor signal had been picked up. He zoomed in on it and frowns. 

“There is a signal channel open leading to the location, yes,” Karen confirms, her voice weirdly hesitant. The screen zooming in even more until it displays a street view of where the reactors are. He can see three - four blinking lights where they are, somewhere inside a building at the end of the road.

A garage. They’re in a  _ literal _ garage. Awesome. 

“I’m sensing a but?” he mutters, tapping a finger on the table in time with his heartbeat. 

“There are a significant number of protections surrounding the channel. My guess is that is it a hidden one.”

“Hidden, schmidden,” Peter mutters, staring at the screen. Who on earth needs four arc reactors? Follow up question, who on earth things a garage is a good place to keep them? Tony kept the Captain America shield in his garage and Morgan nearly tried to vault herself off a three-foot high snowbank with it. Nothing good comes out of keeping important things in garages. “Get into it.”

“You have become very assertive recently, Peter,” Karen says, the ghost of a smile in her voice. “It is incredibly amusing.”

“Hey,” he quips back, snapping his fingers. “Less talking, more breaking into people’s communication channels.”

And, for the five seconds that their conversations are light and filled with banter, Peter can almost pretend that things are normal and this is just a normal mission and no one is hurt and there are no images of Beck with bloodstained hands playing out on a loop in the back of his head. He can pretend they’re in his room and he’s hanging off the side of his bed or swaying from the ceiling, experimentally stabbing at the wiring of some nondescript part of his suit while rambling to Karen about his World History quiz or Flash being annoying or what he wants for dinner or  _ whatever _ , really. He can just pretend things are normal

“I have entered the channel, Peter,” Karen says after a pause, and Peter suddenly remembers where he is and why his whole body hurts and his chest permanently feels like it’s caving in and he sighs just a little. “Would you like to send a message?”

“Can we call this person?”

“Video or voice?”

He pauses. Both will probably equally stressful for whoever’s in that garage, so his answer really doesn’t matter all that much. “Video.”

What looks like a FaceTime call opens up at the center of the screen. The line rings for a grand total of three seconds and Peter has time to beg whatever god is still listening to him for this to  _ please not be a serial bomber I’m about to FaceTime, please _ , before the person on the other end picks up. 

“You have five seconds to explain who the fuck you are before I fry whatever thing you’ve used to break into this channel into the next fucking century.”

Peter blinks. Okay, not the energy he was expecting. 

“Hello?” the voice demands. The picture is foggy - it looks like when he calls MJ and she’s put tape over her computer camera because she’s been watching too many episodes of Black Mirror again - but he can make out vague shapes moving around on the other end. “Fucking answer?”

Peter blinks again. “I -” he tries, then stops. Might as well just be straight about this. “You have four arc reactor prototypes in your garage.”

There’s a pause. Then a lot of scraping. Then, “They’re not  _ prototypes _ , asswipe. They’re the real deal. And you didn’t answer my fucking question.”

Who the hell is this? “I need one,” he says lamely. “Please.”

There’s a snort on the other end. “Nice manners. Do you actually think I’m just doing to give you an arc reactor because you said please?”

Peter’s brain feels like it’s the thing being fried right now. The pure energy radiating off the person on the other end alone is enough to make his head spin. “I - need them,” he repeats. 

“So you said.” More scraping. “But, since I don’t feel like starting World War fucking Three up in this bitch, I’m gonna have to decline your offer. Break into this channel one more time and I’m going to send a letter bomb to wherever the fuck you are. Have a nice night!”

“Wait, stop!” Peter literally holds a hand out, waving it in front of the camera. “I - I haven’t called you before.”

Because he hasn’t. Which means someone else has. 

_ Someone else looking for the reactors? _

“You -“ The figure on the other end stops moving. “Then who the  _ fuck _ are you?”

“Who the fuck are  _ you?” _ Peter challenges, irritation burning at the edges of his brain. “And why do you have a bunch of arc reactors in your garage?”

“Because I live there.”

“What - in your  _ garage?” _

“Hey, dial back the judgement,  _ asswipe _ . Why do you want my arc reactors?”

Peter sighs forcefully. He did not prepare to get this annoyed talking to what sounds like a four year old who lives in their garage and threatens to zap people’s AIs for fun. “I need them.”

“Buddy, you’re gonna have to do better than that -”

“It’s complicated, okay?” he snaps.  _ God _ , this kid is getting on his nerves. “Listen, I really don’t wanna fly down there and take them from you but someone I know is in danger and they need help -  _ my _ help - and I need an arc reactor because someone else I know’s - method of transportation is down and - can you just not be difficult and give me an arc reactor? Please?”

There’s a long pause that gives Peter plenty of time to question how on earth his life got to the point where he’s FaceTiming random little kids and threatening to steal their property. 

“Method of transportation?” the kid finally echoes. “The fuck does that mean?”

Peter holds back a sigh. _What the hell,_ right? “Iron Man. My friend is Iron Man. Tony - Tony Stark.”

“Oh.” There’s another pause and Peter definitely was not supposed to tell random little kids that Tony Stark is still alive, but he’s hoping Tony’ll forgive him for it. If not, they can just add that to the list. “What’s wrong with the reactor?”

The kid sounds impressively unsurprised that Tony Stark is still alive and, honestly, it’s one of the more normal things that’s happened to Peter recently, so he lets it slide. “It’s - shot, I don’t know. It’ll blow up if he turns the suit back on with it in if and, look, kid -”

“I’m not a  _ kid _ , asswipe -”

_ “Who cares? _ Just - please. For Iron Man’s sake -”

“How the hell do you even know Tony?”

_ Tony?  _ “I - god. Okay. I’m Spider-man.”

Because really,  _ what the hell? _

There’s another long pause. “Didn’t you try and kill a bunch of people in London?”

Peter really, really wants to scream. This is getting better and better. “No,” he says through gritted teeth. “That was a misunderstanding.”

“Pretty realistic  _ misunderstanding _ , if you ask me. You know, they had some of the best technology on the planet proof that video. Said it wasn’t faked.”

There’s a new note of hostility in the kid’s voice and,  _ god _ , this is the last thing Peter needs right now. He balls his hands into fists and presses them into his eyes before speaking again. 

“Okay, that’s cool,” he forces out. “Doesn’t change the fact that, one, it’s fake and Quentin Beck tried to kill me and my friends and, two, he’s not dead and, three, he just blew up a house and stole Iron Man’s daughter and it’s kind of all my fault and I just really need to fix this and I have to have a stupid arc reactor to do that so can I please come down there and get one?”

There’s the longest pause yet. “Okay,” the kid says finally. His voice is weirdly small now, like something about Peter’s semi-tirade really touched him. He ignores that. 

“I’ll be down there in a few hours -”

“Wait!” the kid interjects, earlier energy back in a flash. “How do I know you’re not the other guy?”

“What other guy?”

The kid on the other end heaves a sigh. “I don’t know,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “Dumbass. He just called me like, six times to ask for the arc reactors. Said if I didn’t give him one he’d just come and kill me and then take it. I said he should go fuck himself and hung up on him. Hasn’t called since.”

A decidedly bad feeling sinks right into Peter’s stomach. He swallows. “What - what did the guy say he wanted the reactors for?”

He can almost hear the kid on the other end shrugging as the vague shape in front of him moves a little. “Wanted to make something, I don’t know. Sounded fucking sketchy, hence why I said no. I mean, I’d say no even if he wasn’t sketchy, because these are arc reactors we’re talking about, but -”

“Shut up,” Peter mutters, igniting the offended noise from the other end. 

If it’s Beck -

_ But why would it be?  _ he counters internally. Sure, the arc reactor is still advanced technology, especially the make that Tony - and apparently this random-ass kid from Tennessee - has, but if Beck has EDITH, why would he waste his time looking for an arc reactor? He could cause as much destruction as he wanted at the push of a button. No need to go harassing random kids for a piece of tech he doesn’t even need. 

He grits his teeth. He’s being stupid. Stupid and paranoid. It’s not Beck. 

“Asswipe!” the kid’s voice snaps, cutting off his thoughts. “You living?”

Peter blinks. Then blinks again. It’s not Beck. 

_ It’s not Beck.  _

“What?” he grumbles. “I need -”

“Yeah, yeah, you need a fucking arc reactor. Go you. Look, not saying I don’t believe that you’re buddy-buddy with Tony - I mean, everyone knows he’s basically adopted Spider-man, at this point -”

_ Why the fuck does he sound so bitter? _

“- but I just don’t know if I -”

Whatever the kid doesn’t know will forever remain a mystery because the rest of his speech is swiftly cut off by a door banging open behind Peter. He flinched and spins around, white-hot terror burning through his body for all of a split second before he takes in Tony’s face and relaxes. 

The man pauses in the doorway, door in question swinging on its hinges a little behind him. 

“You should be in bed,” he says finally, voice a little less than totally emotionless this time. 

Peter blinks back at him, the automatic I’m sorry burning a hole in the back of his throat. Instead, he just waves a hand in the direction of the screen open in front of him. 

Thank god the kid’s finally shut up. 

“I’m - working,” he forces out. 

“I told Karen to keep you in bed -”

“I told her not to -”

“The protocol -”

“Told her to ignore it -”

“ _ Tony?” _ the kid pipes up, successfully ruining what was probably the most emotion Tony had shot in his direction since the bomb. Peter forces down the urge to reach through the screen and choke slam the him. 

Pure surprise flashes across Tony’s face and he abandons his position in the doorway to come storming over to where Peter is. “Harley?”

_ Who the fuck is Harley? _ “You two know each other?” he demands. 

Tony looks somewhere over his shoulder and Peter’s urge to scream is amplified by a hundred and fifty percent. “Why are you calling Harley?”

“Your reactor is shot - suit’s totally useless - Karen said that this kid -”

_ “I’m not a fucking kid!” _

“- has a bunch in his garage so I was going to go and get some -”

“Harls.” Tony cuts him off, turning to the monitor.  _ Harls? _ “Has someone already been asking you for these reactors? Calling you, or something?”

“Yeah,” the voice on the other end says slowly. “Yeah, some -  _ guy _ , I don’t know who he was. Said he wanted to make something really important with them.”

Tony leans -  _ jerks _ , really - back. 

He looks terrified. 

An ice cube of fear slips into Peter’s stomach. He stares up at Tony -  _ look at me, look at me, please look at me _ \- and blinks hard. 

“What’s going on?” he demands. 

Tony’s jaw clenched. He grips his left wrist. Peter can see the hand shaking a little. 

There’s a long, heavy silence and, for a second, Peter’s convinced Tony just tuned him out completely. He opens his mouth to repeat his question. - or maybe just to scream; who knows, really? - and then Tony speaks. His voice is low and just as shaky as his hand.

“I found out what Beck is trying to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS 7K WORDS LONG AND BASICALLY NOTHING HAPPENS IM SO SORRY....i physically cannot write anything but slow burn...also the amt of research i had to do to write that one (1) paragraph on the reactor was embarrassing i do not do science ALSO there’s sm abt arc reactors in this promise it’s all gonna be important soon....also Harley is here my stupid disaster baby....you’re welcome<3


	11. XI

“He’s been going back through files as of as 2008,” Tony begins. 

Finally, after about as much persuading as Peter felt in a position to give, he sat down in a chair next to Peter. There’s a good three feet in between them and Tony’s folded in on himself like he’s trying so simultaneously occupy as little amount of space as possible and keep himself as far away from Peter. Honestly, his probably all in his head, but the more he thinks he about it, the more real it feels.

So he doesn’t think about it. He also doesn’t think about the fact that Tony knows this random little kid - who, incidentally, is actually  _ sixteen years old  _ \- from the middle of nowhere in Tennessee. Not only knows, but is, like,  _ friends _ with. 

He’s not bad, really. The kid - Harley; Peter should probably stop calling someone who he only has a few months on a kid - is funny, in a really annoying, totally inappropriate way. He cracks, like, three jokes about Tony’s beard - “seriously, dude, I know it’s, like, the end of the world for you, or whatever, but you look like a nomad or something” - and a few about the whole  _ Beck-revealing-Peter’s-identity-debacle _ \- “it’s so fucking funny, ‘cause Beck used, like, the least threatening photo of you on the planet to say you’re, like, a sociopathic murderer, or whatever” - all of which make Tony break into smiles so big they look like they’re about to split his face in half. 

Peter hasn’t seen him smile like that in months. Years, even. It makes his chest hurt in the worst way possible, so he definitely doesn’t think about that. 

Instead he just splits his attention between Harley - who’s since taken the tape off his monitor - and Tony. 

Tony, who looks something along the lines of blankly terrified. Tony, who’s hands won’t stop tapping patterns out on the tabletop or pulling the screen in front of Peter closer and closer to him. 

_ (Tony, who still hasn’t looked him in the eye, but he doesn’t think about that.) _

“2008,” Peter echoes, because Tony’s fallen silent, staring off into the distance.

He blinks, shaking his head a little. “Right. Yeah. 2008. The files, they’re - well, it’s a lot of stuff. Most of it is unimportant - bookmarks from old SHIELD and Avengers missions, Stark Industries details, tabs on people who need to have tabs on them - all of that. There’s a few more - ah, personal things, too, I guess -”

“Fuck you mean by  _ personal stuff?” _ Harley demands, line crackling a little. “You making a sex tape, Stark?”

Peter carefully presses his lips together, holding back a snort, as Tony rolls his eyes to the heavens and gives Harley a glare.  _ “No _ , not a  _ sex tape,  _ Keener. It’s mostly just my personal project data. Everything from data on the construction of Jarvis and Friday to Vision’s programming to my suit backlogs to personal medical records. I keep all of that stuff on a secure server that’s sort of passed between my various AIs. Jarvis was monitoring it first, then Friday. EDITH is completely shut out from all of this, though; I mean, one, it’s not an AI, it’s an AR and shouldn’t have access to information like that and, two, in comparison to my other AIs or bots or whatever, EDITH is still very much in the early stages of construction. There’s still a lot of modifications that needed to be made, so I didn’t want that information just floating around before I was certain the project was finished.

“But I went back to the server anyways - you know, better safe than sorry, all that. I mean, if  _ I _ were Beck and I had even the slightest  _ inkling _ that records like that were within the vague realm of available to me, that’d be the first thing I’d go for.”

“And he did?” Peter asks, chewing on the side of his mouth. He did; of course he did.

Tony nods, frowning. “Yeah. I noticed some weird irregularities; it looked like someone had literally been shifting the files around, looking for something. Like I said - EDITH is good; it doesn’t leave traces when it breaks into private servers, but it looks like Beck - or whoever was in charge of this - wasn’t covering their tracks all that great. They were going back as far as, well, like I said. 2008. They had a specific interest in the early designs for the arc reactor, and it looks like they just worked through all the data I have stored on that up until today. That’s - I mean, the model there -” Tony waves a hand at the still-mangled reactor resting on top of his suit. “- that’s years behind to the prototypes I’ve been working on. The most recent designs I have make it so the reactor can function on a wireless scale, really. Not only would it be able to power  _ my _ suit, but also Pepper’s, or Rhodey’s, or yours -” He waves a hand at Peter. “- if you should so wish. And, obviously, the power was intended to go beyond just suits and it was supposed to be a sort of  _ clean energy _ thing, you know, global warming and all that -”

“Okay,” Harley interrupts slowly. The picture on his end of the call is still grainy and cuts out at random intervals - the guy can play with arc reactors and hide his communication channels so well it took a genius AI five minutes to find them like it’s nothing, but he can’t have good service, apparently - but Peter can read the confusion across his face easily. “What’s the big deal? So Beck knows you wanna go green, big whoop.”

“It’s not what I want to do with the prototypes that Beck cares about,” Tony explains. “He’s interested in the science behind it. The reactor as it is  _ now _ functions on a photon-electron reaction system. The electrons are propelled outwards from the core, which creates a huge amount of electrostatic energy which powers the suit, basically. Gamma rays - photon particles, really - travel inwards from the outside of the reactor to the core which loosely translates into the unibeam it can produce, plus some other things. If you want this all to work on a virtually  _ wireless _ scale, though, with the suit - or whatever you’re powering - functioning without any circuitry, these reactions need to happen at an extremely fast rate. And obviously, I’ve designed it so that there’s no collisions -”

“Because if there are, the same thing happens like with your suit, right?” Peter waves a hand in the direction of the Iron Man suit, chest crater and cracked reactor and all. “The particles are thrown off their flow and the core forms a vacuum which - implodes, basically. Or explodes. Or both.”

Tony smiles at him and it’s all tightness and unmistakable exhaustion bordering on the point of collapse but it’s a  _ smile _ . It’s an expression that isn’t filled with ritual blankness and vague irritation and Peter has to physically concentrate on not bursting into tears on the spot. Harley must notice his undoubtedly weird facial expression he’s pulling, because the kid gives him a sideways glance. Peter ignores it.

Tony, on the other hand, doesn’t pick up on anything. He’s reverted his gaze back to somewhere just above the Iron Man suit, animatedly explaining again. “Exactly,” he says, gesticulating abstractly. “And the faster the particles are initially moving, the greater the subsequent explosion from any collision would be. With the most recent prototypes I have, if this were to happen it could have a similar effect to a hydrogen bomb.”

Harley whistles. “Shit.”

“Shit is right. Shit is  _ very _ right, especially considering the fact that reactors are designed so they can, in theory, be linked up to one another. If they’re connected and they’re all primed to explode, the effect could be - disastrous. Beyond disastrous.”

“Define  _ beyond disastrous _ .” Harely’s voice has taken on a weird, tense note and, honestly, Peter’s feeling the same. If a  _ single _ malfunctioning reactor could cause damage similar to an h-bomb, the multiple that Beck is undoubtedly trying to acquire could -  _ shit.  _ They could wipe out the entire planet, for all he knows. 

_ (Now  _ that’s _ an Avengers-level threat) _

“We’re talking a wormhole, if he channels the energy right,” Tony says, left hand shaking a little as he presses it flat against the tabletop. The man’s eyes look cloudy. “Continental extinction if he doesn’t.”

“Shit,” Harley says again. “Like - like New York? With the whole - aliens thing?  _ More _ aliens?”

Tony looks sick. “Yeah. More aliens.”

There’s a pause. Peter leans back into his seat, exhaling slowly. There’s something that just doesn’t add up about this, though. Sure, Beck wants to build a huge weapon and wave it over everyone’s heads to make him feel powerful;  _ that _ Peter can believe. But wormholes, extinction - that just doesn’t read like  _ Beck _ to him. 

“The guy’s dramatic, right?” he mutters, more to himself than to Tony and Harley, but picks up the volume when he feels their gazes move to him. “He - he wants attention, recognition - that was what the elementals were about. And, ueah, obviously people got hurt or died, or whatever, and he didn’t have a huge moral issue with that, but, like, it doesn’t make sense that he’d want to kill everyone. ‘Cause if everyone’s dead, who’s gonna, like, worship him, or whatever he wants, right? He - he wants to be a hero. He wants to  _ save _ people, he -”

And then it hits him.

“He’s gonna do that. He’s gonna make it look like everyone’s about to die, and then he’s gonna pretend to save them.”

“Save them?” Tony echoes. “Peter, there’s no  _ saving anyone _ from this. If he makes any sort of explosive contraption using the updated reactor technology, he’s toast.  _ We’re  _ toast. It - it’s not a thing you can engineer in the same way normal bombs can be, where you have fail safes and the little red wire you cut so everyone doesn’t get blown to hell and back. He turns it on, so to speak, and that’s it. Done.”

“But what if he doesn’t know that -”

“He’s not an  _ idiot _ , for god’s sake -”

“Yeah, but I don’t think he’s thinking right,” Peter says, half-slamming a hand down on the tabletop. Tony blinks. “I mean, think about it. What logical thing has he done since London? Yeah, okay, exposing me was smart. But the lake house? Taking Morgan?” Peter pretends he doesn’t see the way Tony flinches a little at that. “I mean - he’s - there’s no order to this. He’s just - pissed. He’s pissed at you and  _ really _ pissed at me and I think he just wants to hurt us, or whatever, and play the hero for a bit and he’s not really  _ thinking _ about it, you - you know?”

“What’s he waiting for, then?” Tony asks, frowning at him. “I believe you; yeah, he’s pissed. So why hasn’t he taken the reactors yet? He can figure out who Harley is and where he lives and how to get there at the drop of a hat with EDITH. Why hasn’t he?”

Peter closes his eyes, passing a hand over his face. It makes sense -  _ it makes sense _ . All the times Peter had thought he had won, both when he was fighting with and against Beck; from the alleged end of the elementals attacks to Beck faking his own capture by Fury only to make Peter walk into the path of the train. 

It makes sense.

“When I was, like, fighting him, or whatever,” he says aloud. “I - he would, like, make it so I won. In Prague, we thought we had defeated the last elemental. I - I thought Fury captured him at one point, and even in London he faked a hologram of him giving up so he could try and shoot me while I was distracted. Every time, it was like - he wants us to think we’re safe, I think. Basically. I mean, it makes sense, right? He’s obviously alive and well enough to come all the way out to your lake house and order a drone strike on it - what’s to say he had to wait so long to do it? He could’ve easily gone after me and you separately in half the time. And - and even with the bomb - if he wanted us to die, we’d be dead. That - we were so close - five, ten feet away from where it dropped. Any normal bomb should've killed us, but it didn’t. And with Morgan -”

“He’s drawing it out,” Tony interjects. His mouth is tight around the corners and his hand won’t stop squeezing into fists on the table and Peter’s stupid, so stupid for mentioning Morgan, what was he  _ thinking? _ \- “Make us suffer, is it?”

Peter swallows.  _ No time for that _ . “Y-yeah. Some - something like that, I think. He thinks he can win; I mean, he has EDITH, so maybe it’s not a long shot -”

“We’ll win,” Tony says firmly. His gaze has moved back to somewhere into the distance and, for the billionth time that day, Peter wishes he could somehow reach inside the man and pull him out of himself, shake him back into the present, into his body, or whatever.

Or, rather, he wishes Morgan was here, sleeping in the medbay with Happy and Pepper or sitting on the unoccupied chair between him and Tony that he’s suddenly realizing the man probably left open for that exact reason. He wishes she wasn’t god-knows where with a homicidal lunatic armed with an axe to grind and a multi-billion dollar AR system.

_ (He wishes he had just been a little bit faster, grabbed on just a little bit harder.) _

“Fuck yeah we will,” Harley chimes in. The sound of scraping on his end of the line has picked up - harsh; like metal grating against metal - and it’s making the hair on the back of Peter’s neck stand up. He gives the kid an irritated glare.

“What are you  _ doing _ back there?” he mutters.

Harley’s affronted stare is thrown into full, pixelated relief as he leans towards his camera, narrowing his eyes. “Battering down the hatches,” he says, like it’s obvious. “If a crazy-ass dude is gonna show up at my house, I at least want him to have to work a little to get inside.”

“It’s  _ battening _ , actually -”

“Suck a dick, Parker. When are you guys gonna be here?”

Peter decides not to point out how totally useless it will be showing up to get the reactors - if anything, it will just give Beck a window of opportunity where they’re all in the same place at the same time, virtual sitting ducks for him - and just reopens the map Karen had drawn up for him earlier, squinting at the red line connecting their location to Harley’s.

“Says it’s about a ten hour drive -”

“We’ll be there in five,” Tony interrupts, still staring off into the distance. “See you in a few, Keener.”

“Uh, bye -”

“End call.”

Karen obliges and the video feet cuts out, silence rushing in to fill the yawning gaps that the absence of Harley’s scraping noises, loud talking, and other miscellaneous sounds caused. Peter hates it. He can hear everything else in Harley’s absence - a low beeping coming from one of the file cabinets, faint sizzling coming from the reactor, Tony’s heavy, erratic breathing - drawn out and forced in all the ways that tells Peter the man is furiously trying to keep it level and stop himself from spiraling into a panic attack.

Yep, he hates it. So, so much.

“You know,” says Tony slowly into the silence, steadiness of his voice not giving anything away in regards to the off-time pounding of his heart Peter can hear painfully well. His eyes are bright. “Out of all the circumstances in which I wanted you to meet Harley Keener, this didn’t even make it to the bottom of the list.”

Peter’s not totally sure what to say in response to that, so he just drags a nail along the groove of the metal table, frowning.

“How’d you meet him?” he says after a pause.

Tony huffs a dry laugh, the ghost of a smile curling up the corners of his mouth. “God, must’ve been - what, a decade ago now, or something? Yeah, I was having some issues with some various bad guys. House got blown up and I needed something in the area, so I ended up crash landing in his backyard. He, uh, put me up for a while, got me back on my feet. I was - well, this was just after that whole, uh, shindig in New York with the aliens, so I was a bit of a mess. He was - good. Helped talk me down a couple of times. We stayed in contact after that and - well, he got snapped away, so, there was that. Sent him a little  _ hello _ message once I - revived, or whatever, but hadn’t heard anything from him until now.”

“How’d he get the reactors?”

“Christmas gift,” Tony says with the same, sad smile as before. “He was being a dick about it, kept asking for some all year - wanted to  _ mess around _ with them, whatever the fuck that meant - and I finally caved. Great idea, huh?”

“I don’t think you can really take the blame for this one, Mr. Stark,” Peter says flatly. Because he can’t; of course he can’t. This one’s on Peter, Tony knows that better than anyone else.

“No?” Tony’s voice is just as flat, tinged with a streak of disbelief that makes Peter want to rip his hair out. 

He closes his eyes. He can still see Beck from the dream, face blank and hands bloody. He can still see Morgan’s face right before Beck disappeared with her - all wide eyes and tear tracks cutting through the dirt on her cheeks and palpable fear. He can still see how Tony looked at them the first time they saw each other after the blast, with his blank eyes and blank face and stiff movements that just screamed  _ your fault, all of this is your fault _ at Peter. 

Which it is, of course. It is, it is, it  _ fucking is - _

“I’m gonna go,” he says loudly, standing up and almost knocking the chair back. His leg half-screams with protest with the new weight placed on it, but he shoves that aside.  _ Ignore it. No time. _ “And say - goodbye to Mrs. Potts and Happy. You - you can -”

He doesn’t know  _ what _ Tony can do, nor does it make any rational sense that  _ he _ should be the one saying goodbye to Pepper and Happy, not Tony, but he can’t stay in this room any more. He can’t stay with Tony, with the physical reminder that he’s messed up everything so, so bad and it’s looking more and more like he’s not even going to be able to fix it, without finally snapping and, since there’s absolutely  _ no time _ to do that, he has to get out of here. 

“Okay,” says Tony. He’s still sitting down, looking up at Peter with an expression tinged with an emotion he doesn’t have time - or the desire - to process right now. “They have provisions; I have a system looking over them and a bot on standby for when they wake up. You - do whatever you gotta do, kid. I’ll be in the garage.”

Peter nods, limping back away from the desk, from Tony. He backs out of the room and into the hallway, turning down the dimly lit space until he’s back where he came from - the med bay. 

It’s still dark and the thing - a bot, apparently - is still beeping contentedly in the corner, it’s red eye-like discs fixed pointedly on the two figures sleeping in front of it. Happy and Pepper’s steady heartbeats fill the room, his own synching up with them without him even having to try to do so. He can see a chair that Tony probably occupied a few hours ago sitting askew next to the far bed - Pepper’s - and Peter slowly makes his way around the room, careful to walk as silently as possible, to sit in it.

Her eyes are closed, face completely blank. A few bandages are scattered across her temple and chin where she probably got blasted by shrapnel and there’s a nasal tube taped up to her nose that’s connected to one of the various beeping machines surrounding them. She looks peaceful, relaxed, which makes Peter relax a little, too. Pepper’s like that, really. She has this universal effect on him, always able to calm him down and slowly bring him back from the edge of whatever he’s standing on without making it seem obvious or like a hassle or anything. 

They’d gotten close over the four months when Tony had been gone. Not to say that they weren’t close before - Peter hung out with her almost as much as Tony on his days and weekends spent over at the Compound - but after Tony had died, they had suddenly had a lot more common ground than before. With Rhodey and Happy out more often than not doing various governmental and bureaucratic things, Nat dead, and Morgan still a little too young to fully get a handle on just what had happened to Tony, they had found comfort in each other being the only people left, sort of, that had been close to Tony. 

_ Even if it had been her comforting you, more often than not _ , he thinks with not a little bitterness.  _ But isn’t that just how it is with you? _

Peter rests a hand on the barrier surrounding the bed, careful not to dent it like before. Swallows.

_ (Petey?) _

A part of him is almost happy she’s still asleep, happy that they both are. He can’t do it again; he can’t look people who love Morgan in the face again and tell them what happened to her, tell them that she’s in the hands of Beck now because he was too weak to move the concrete, too slow to grab onto her in time.

_ (Pete - Petey, what’s going on?) _

“Hi, Mrs. Potts,” he murmurs and the illusion of Morgan’s final moments shatters with the sudden noise. “Pepper. Sorry. I know you - sorry. Pepper. I - I’m sure Mr. Stark - Tony - already told you what’s been happening. I - I don’t know if you can, like, hear stuff right now, but - yeah. He - the bomb - Beck. All Beck. I -”

His eyes are burning and the familiar voice is screaming at him, yelling _ don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t you dare fucking cry _ but the room is dark and Pepper’s alseep anyways and it’s not like him being weak is exactly a novel concept at this point, so what’s the issue, really? 

But he doesn’t, still. He just swallows.

“I shouldn’t have come,” he mutters, gritting his teeth against the ache in his chest. “To - to the lake house. That was so -  _ stupid _ of me. I was just - no. Doesn’t matter. It was stupid and it - it brought Beck and things would’ve been  _ fine _ if I had just -  _ done it myself _ but I d-didn’t and I - I’m really sorry, Mrs. Potts? And - and Beck, he - he took -”

_ (Sorry doesn’t cut it anymore, Peter.) _

“Morgan.” Her name feels heavy, sinking into the air around him like a rock in water. “He took Morgan and I - I almost got her? I almost  _ s-saved _ her but I was stuck under this rock thing and that doesn’t even matter because I’m - I’m supposed to be  _ Spider-man _ , you know? S’posed to - to be able to  _ stop  _ this kind of stuff a-and I  _ didn’t _ and now she’s - gone and I just -”

_ Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry -  _

“- really don’t know what to do? I’m - I’m trying to fix it but I don’t know  _ h-how _ and I’m just - it’s so dumb but I’m so  _ tired _ and I don’t know how to fix any of this and - and Mr. Stark is so mad at me ‘cause I lost her and I don’t - he doesn’t -”

His eyes are burning again. The image of Pepper in front of him is fracturing, doubling and sliding in and out of view as his eyes fill with stupid,  _ stupid _ tears that he just can’t stop anymore. 

He blinks and feels something drop onto his cheeks. Then again, then again, then again and Peter’s chest feels like it’s being ripped in half all over again.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. Like that means anything, like that fixes anything. Like that brings Morgan back. “I’m so -  _ s-sorry _ and he’s so  _ m-mad _ and he should be but I just - I’m being so  _ dumb _ and I don’t - I just want him to - you know? Just - be angry. Yell at me. T-tell me ‘s’all my f-fault - ‘cause it is and that sounds so  _ stupid _ and self-pitying but it  _ is _ \- b-but he won’t; he’s just so quiet and angry and h-he’s been through so fucking  _ much -  _ you have too - and things were so good and then I came and ruined it and I - I don’t - I don’t know how to fix it, Mrs. Potts. I don’t - you guys just - you deserve to be  _ happy _ , you know? And I f-fucked that up. So much. And I - I know it doesn’t mean anything but I’m - I’m so sorry.”

Peter swallows another golf-ball sized lump and furiously wipes at his face. Stupid, stupid, he’s being so stupid. They need to go - he needs to fix this. He needs to figure out how to do that and then  _ do it _ . Crying is -  _ stupid.  _ He’s -

_ So tired, I’m so tired, I’m so sorry and I’m so tired _ .

Being stupid. He’s being stupid.

Peter stands, pushing the chair back quietly. His whole body feels shaky, like he’s just been really sick for weeks on end, and the walls of the med bay are still distorting with tears blurring his gaze.

Something at the edge of his vision - right by the door - shifts, suddenly, disappearing. He frowns through the darkness, wiping at his eyes some more -  _ stupid, stupid, stupid _ \- but there’s nothign there. Just a strip of yellow light from the hallway outside pooling onto the floor in front of them.

“Who’s that, Kar?” he mutters into the darkness. 

There’s a weird, tense pause. Peter inhaled, breath catching. Then, “Mr. Stark, I believe. He is now headed to the garage.”

_ Fuck.  _ “He - he saw all that?”

Another pause. “I believe so.”

Not for the first time, Peter has to seriously talk himself out of just curling up on the floor, pressing his face into the ground, and refusing to open his eyes until this is all fixed by someone other than him. Or just forever, maybe. He can’t - doesn’t matter if Tony heard that. So Peter’s being stupid, so Peter doesn’t know how to make the messes he caused any better, so Peter’s fucked up. Not like it’s telling Tony anything he doesn’t know.

So he doesn’t lie down. He just sighs heavily and scrubs at his face a little more. “Awesome,” he mutters into the darkness. “Awesome.”

“Are you okay, Peter? You seemed very upset.”

Her concern makes him want to start crying all over again, but he’s already slammed the lid down on that stuff. When this is over. He can feel when this is all over.

_ If it ever finishes _ , a voice inside his head says helpfully. Peter grits his teeth.

“I’m great,” he says and it’s a lie - a bad one at that - but, hey, at least he’s trying, right? “Let’s go get us some reactors.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy...this is why we don’t eavesdrop TONY....also very glad to see all of u have appreciated the arrival of our Lord and Savior harley keener as you SHOULD he is the best boy ever.....
> 
> also! shameless self promo but i just posted a new fic...gonna be super long and slow burny and has copious amounts of secret identities...pls check it out is called “for dramatic purposes” and lmk what u think woohoo


	12. XII

The walk to the car from the garage doors of the safe house feels eerily like a death march to Peter. He’s hyper aware of everything - of the light breeze that ruffles the hairs on his arms and the feeling of his t-shirt blowing against his skin and the blood running throug his veins and the heavy, crushing knowledge that Tony saw him whole breakdown to Pepper back there.

He’s not sure if he should be mortified or terrified of what he’s going to say once Peter gets in the car, so he decides on a healthy combination of the two.

God, he’s so stupid. So, so  _ stupid _ .

The car is running by the time he reaches it, engine quiet but still loud enough for Peter to pick up on it. His hands find the side door in the darkness that’s already fallen around the safe house and he pulls it open, sliding inside without another sound.

The interior is cool. Tony is already at the wheel and Peter can see the white of his knuckles shining through the gloom. There’s the faint sound of the classic rock station playing from the radio.

“All good?” Tony says flatly. 

Peter nods and Tony starts driving without another word. He hasn’t looked at Peter once and the pain of that registers on a fuller-that-usual scale for the time being. What was he expecting, really?

_ What do you deserve, really? _

Peter just presses his forehead against the window and sighs. His head is buzzing, so he closes his eyes against it. That’s nice. More of that.

He must’ve dozed off, because when he blinks again his face is pressed against the car window and there’s a stream of half-illuminated bushes and road signs zooming by as they barrel down the deserted highway. The music has stopped and he can hear Tony’s breathing as loud as gunshots in its absence.

Peter turns a little, trying not to wince too obviously - that impromptu nap really didn’t do anything for the almost painful stiffness that seems to have settled into his bones - and glances at the dashboard. It’s just past 11:00 p.m. They’ve only been driving for a few hours, then.

He blinks, trying do dislodge some of the fuzziness around the edges of his vision and stares out of the window again. They’re starting to pass a line of shadowy-looking trees, branches thrown into sharp relief by a combination of the car headlights and the street lamps above. If Peter presses his ear to the window hard enough, he can hear the wind blowing outside and the faint sounds of lightening crackling coming in on the breeze. Above them, the sky is a mix of dark greys and blues. There are no stars.

They had studied this in English class what felt like a million years ago. There’s a term for it - when the weather represents the mood of everyone in the book or play or whatever. Pathetic fallacy. Shakespeare used it a lot, or someone like him. Peter closes his eyes. He can’t remember.

He swallows. His mouth feels dry and the car around him feels like it’s melting away, or like it was never really there in the first place. The seemingly age-old doubt starts to creep back into his mind; the crushing feeling that  _ this is all fake, this is all fake and you’re so  _ gullible  _ Peter, you’re such a  _ sucker,  _ Peter, Beck’s gonna kill all your friends and you need to fucking  _ wake up  _ and stop him now  _ starts winding around his rib cage again.

Part of him  _ hopes _ this isn’t real. Part of him hopes he’s still in fucking Venice or Prague or wherever and this is all a bad dream and Beck isn’t bad and everyone’s safe and he’s just on his stupid trip whining about how much Brad sucks to Ned and googling romantic cafes in Paris and bickering with Flash over who gets to control the aux on the bus and he hasn’t fucked everything up so, so badly yet.

Had that whole trip only been such a short time ago? Had it really been two weeks ago that he was returning from London, carefully planning his story out for May on the plane so that she wouldn’t worry as much as she had to when she saw the mess of cuts and bruises and broken bones that he had when he stepped out of the airport doors - even if he knew she would already know everything that had happened because she was May and that was just how things were with her? Had it really been only two weeks ago that he had been sending Ned screenshots of his texts with MJ and the dates they were planning? Had it really only been a two weeks ago that he had still thought Tony - the very same Tony seated next to him with his jaw clenched and his hands white-knuckled and his gaze behind unreadable - was  _ dead?  _

Had it really been less than a week ago that Beck had hacked the Times Square billboards and told the world that he was a drone-wielding psychopath? Had he really believed that the man was dead before that? Had he really been  _ stupid  _ enough to leave that bridge without checking properly, taken EDITH back without transferring controls, given it to fake-Nick Fury? Had he really showed up at the lake house thinking anything good would come out of him coming back into Tony’s life? Had he really lost Morgan? Had Beck really come? Had they really figured out he was trying to build a bomb that could kill billions without the control the man was unable to exercise?

Had he really been  _ stupid  _ enough to believe that things would be okay?

Was any of this even real? Is he even here? Is Tony even alive? Has the London fight even  _ happened _ yet?

Is he dead?

_ (I don’t think you know  _ what’s _ real, Peter.) _

Would it really be so bad if he was?

“Kid?”

Peter blinks his eyes open. His whole neck is pressed against the headrest of his seat like he was trying to have the car seat absorb his body into it and he’s suddenly aware he’s been holding his breath.

He exhales slowly and relaxes. Tries to. His leg hurts.

Tony isn’t looking at him - eyes on the road at all times, that’s what May always says whenever they go driving - but Peter can almost feel his gaze in spirit. It feels like it would be cold and empty and like a knife slowly sliding in between his ribs and twisting and and it  _ hurts  _ and he definitely deserves it.

“Yeah,” he says aloud, trying to keep his voice steady and calm, because the last thing he needs now is to worry Tony anymore than he probably has; that’s the last thing the man deserves. “Yeah, hi.”

Tony switches lanes. The streetlights above flash across his face, making the man’s eyes sparkle like there’s stars inside of them. “Hi. You with me?”

_ Like you want that.  _ “Yeah - yeah. All good.”

Peter’s turned his attention back to the scenery flashing by him - the empty freeway and the shining tarmac and shadowy trees and bushes and undergrowth all blending together into one giant, dark puddle - but he can feel the space in the conversation where Tony might nod. Or just sit there silently before a few seconds before saying, “You know, you can go back to sleep. I was a bit - overzealous with our journey time earlier. We’ve got a good five hours to go.”

“Yeah,” he says to the world outside. He’s not sure if he can look at Tony without his chest caving in even more than it feels like it has already. “Yeah. Maybe.”

There’s another pause. The silence that comes with it is deafening and the more unhinged part of Peter wants to scream, thrash about, kick and punch and cry and just  _ scream _ until it breaks and everything breaks back into a form of normal that he recognizes.

Hell, he doesn’t even need normal. He just wants Tony to look at him. Forgive him, tell him it’s okay. Even if he doesn’t deserve it.

But Peter just stays silent and watches as his breath leaves little circles of fog on the glass. 

He hears Tony sigh softly, all a mixture of defeat and frustration and something dark and heavy Peter doesn’t want to think about. “You don’t have anything to prove, kid.”

“I know,” he says just as softly. He knows. This isn’t him trying to prove himself, though.

_What is it, then?_ the cold voice in his head sneers. _Punishment? You think that’s_ _going to do_ anything? _You think that’s going to fix this?_

Another sigh. “Meaning you can sleep. Staying up and working yourself to exhaustion isn’t going to make anything better.”

“Yeah.” Peter swallows. His head hurts. “Maybe.”

“No maybe about it,” Tony says. His gaze flicks over to Peter for just a second before returning to the road. “Trust me.”

“‘S okay,” he mutters. “I’m, like, genetically modified, remember? Spider bite, freaky powers, all that?”

“Yeah, I don’t recall those  _ freaky powers  _ entailing you not needing to sleep. The opposite, actually.”

Peter huffs a laugh. “It’s okay,” he repeats. He doesn’t know what else to say.

“Peter -” Tony starts, then stops. Then sighs again. Then, “You don’t have anything to prove,” he says again, voice softer this time. Gentler.

_ You don’t deserve that, you don’t deserve that, you don’t deserve that - _

“I know,” he says aloud. His leg is pounding again and the car walls feel like they’re starting to slowly collapse down on him which is so stupid - they’re not even moving and he’s being stupid and he needs to stop freaking out and panicking and just  _ focus  _ and  _ fix this.  _ And he will - he’s going to do it. He’s going to do it and Tony needs to know that because maybe he doesn’t yet, maybe he thinks Peter has given up and, sure, he  _ wants _ to, but he can’t because it’s his mess and he has to fix it. So, after another pause, he says, “I’m not - this isn’t me trying to make a - I don’t know - statement, or - or whatever. I just - I don’t have time to sleep.”

“You have five hours -”

“No, no,” he says - mutters really - shaking his head. “I don’t - I need to be awake, you know? I need to - plan, or something. Fix this.”

This time Tony does look at him, long and hard. His gaze is unreadable as ever and Peter realizes he probably sounds like he’s lost his fucking  _ mind _ which is cool, you know, not like Tony could probably think any less of him at this point, so that’s okay. 

Tony takes a breath in that sounds shakier than Peter expected. “You don’t have -”

“No,” Peter repeats, shaking his head harder. He was going to say  _ you don’t have to fix this  _ which is such a total lie it almost makes Peter laugh. Almost. “No, I - I gotta. I - it’s me, you know? I - I mean you heard it - what I said to Ms. Potts, I guess, so you know, and you - you know what happened, you know why he -”

His voice is starting to shake a little at the edges. Stupid, stupid, he can’t even get through a sentence without fucking  _ crying  _ again - god, he’s so  _ stupid.  _

Peter swallows furiously and Tony’s  _ definitely _ looking at him now as they barrel down the highway at 90 miles an hour and there’s no point in saying any of this because Tony already knows - and not just because he heard him say it before to the sleeping Pepper.

“You know why he came,” he says in the calmest voice he can manage. “You - I brought him there - to the house. And - and it’s happened and there’s nothing I can do about that, really, so - so I gotta just fix what’s left, you know? Get -” 

_ Breathe. Breathe. Calm down and breathe.  _

Peter blinks hard - his eyes are burning again, helpfully enough - for a second before continuing. “I’m gonna get her back, Mr. Stark. I’m gonna get her back and I’m gonna fix all of this. You - you can just - relax -”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“- or - or something and hang out with Harley and - and recover ‘cause I know you’re saying everything is fine but Karen showed me the diagnostics and your arm was super messed up, like, even more than it already is but that’s okay because you - you’re going to rest now and I - I’m gonna stop Beck, I’m gonna stop this all and it’s gonna be okay, yeah? M-morgan’s gonna come back and it’s gonna be okay -”

“Pete -“

“No!” Peter can feel Tony’s eyes on him all of a sudden, gaze sharp with something that isn’t blankness or the same, cold irritation as back at the safe house and somehow the absence of those two things is even  _ harder _ to deal with and he jerks back a little, head pressing into the window, like he can somehow avoid the emotion in Tony’s eyes like it’s a physical thing. 

It’s concern. Peter’s seen it in the man’s eyes enough to recognize it in a heart beat by now. He saw it after the fight in Germany when they had met back up in Peter’s hotel room, even as Tony sported his own bruises and broken sort of tiredness swirling around him. He’d seen it after the whole Vulture fiasco and when Tony finally found out about the parking garage. He’d seen it after Tony saw him time and time again at his worst - on the anniversary of Ben’s death, after fights with Ned or May, after Spider-man patrols that went particularly wrong, after bad days at school and nightmares and panic attacks and guilt complexes and every single other piece of shit he’d somehow managed to put the man through. And it’s not  _ fair  _ \- that’s the baseline of it, really. Tony being worried, Tony being  _ concerned  _ isn’t fair because Peter doesn’t fucking  _ deserve it.  _ Sure, the anger and blankness was awful but at least that made sense - he’s the reason Tony’s daughter has been fucking  _ kidnapped _ , for god’s sake. The concern doesn’t make sense because this is Peter’s fault, because if he had just never fucking  _ showed up  _ none of this would be happening and Tony and Pepper and Morgan would still be happy and  _ safe _ , tucked away in their house without Peter and all his stupid bad luck and  _ bullshit _ to come and ruin it. 

Tony can’t worry because worry is connected with him still caring and Peter just doesn’t deserve that. 

This is  _ his fault; _ how on earth can he?

Peter presses his head back harder. The window behind him feels cold even though it’s the middle of July and they’re halfway on their trip to fucking  _ Tennessee  _ and Peter shivers at the feeling. Cold, everything feels so fucking cold right now even as his eyes start to burn.

His hands are shaking. His vision is blurring a little - god, how long has it been since he slept properly? - and Tony’s still  _ fucking looking at him _ and he just wants to scream.

“Peter -”

Peter shakes his head almost violently. He can’t - he can’t - Tony should hate him. Tony should be screaming at him, freezing him out, saying exactly what he has to be thinking which is that this is all Peter’s fault because it  _ is _ . It is, it is, it fucking  _ is _ and he doesn’t know what to do; he doesn’t know how to make this better or bring Morgan back or stop Beck and this is just a  _ mess  _ and he doesn’t know what to  _ do. _

“It’s my fault, Mr. Stark,” he forces out and now his voice really  _ is _ starting to shake but he’s kind of behind the point of caring - not like Tony can think any worse of him now, right? “I - I shouldn’t have come but I d-did and I - she’s gone and it’s  _ so bad _ for  _ me _ so I can’t - even imagine how y-you’re feeling now ‘cause she was - she  _ is _ your daughter and she’s so good and - and she deserves to be safe and so do you and - and your family and I  _ f-fucked _ that up and I just - I gotta make it right. I - I gotta make it right and stop Beck and I don’t - I don’t know -”

He pauses to breathe and the inhale comes all shudders and broken, like he’s dragging in air around shards of glass. He blinks once and feels something hot and wet spill onto his cheeks and of course he’s crying again, of course he just can’t deal with it and focus on making things better instead of being  _ stupid _ and  _ weak _ and,  _ god _ , his head is spinning and his chest feels like it’s cracking open with the weight of whatever’s inside of it and he’s so tired and why can’t he just  _ fucking fix this  _ already?

Probably because he’s too busy talking around the sobs that are slowly working their way up his throat and out of his mouth, which is what he tries to do next. Helpful.

“I - I don’t - I know you’re m-mad,” he says. The light from the street lamps is starting to fracture and explode outwards as his vision blurs again and again and again, no matter how much he blinks it away. “And - and that’s okay and I - I understand and I  _ w-want _ you to be ‘cause I know it’s because of me and - and she’s  _ gone _ and it’s because of me and I - I’d be m-mad too. And - and this sounds so stupid and like I’m feeling  _ s-sorry _ for myself, or - or whatever which is so  _ stupid _ and I - I’m trying - I - I want you to know that it’s okay and y-you can be mad and you don’t have to worry ‘cause I’m gonna f-fix this and it’s gonna be okay and - and I’m sorry and I’ve said that -  _ s-so  _ much recently and it doesn’t change a thing or fix stuff but I am; I’m so sorry, sir,  _ I’m so sorry _ -”

“Don’t call me sir,” Tony says - snaps - and then the car jerks to a stop.

They’ve pulled over. Stopped by a roadside that glows fluorescent green in the headlights from the car and says a bunch of things in big white writing that Peter can’t read because every time he blinks his eyes just fill with new tears and skew his vision again.

The inside of the car is deathly silent, save for the jagged sounds of Peter trying to get his breathing under control. It’s not working very well; for every inhale he takes it feels like he’s losing three more lungfuls of air and his head is  _ spinning  _ and he just wants to curl up on the floor and close his eyes and let everything fade away. He wants this all to stop -  _ now _ \- and,  _ god _ , he fucked it up even more, didn’t he? He knows Tony hates being called sir, knows  _ why _ he hates it and it’s a serious reason and Peter still did it and he’s so stupid, so stupid, so -

Suddenly the presence beside him - the immobile, silent figure of Tony at the wheel - shifts, then disappears with the sound of a car door slamming. The noise shatters the heavy silence and makes Peter almost flinch out of his skin and did Tony just fucking  _ leave? _

Then the door to his right opens and it’s Tony. He’s standing there and his hand is outstretched to Peter and, even through the darkness, Peter can see it shaking.

He’s offering it to Peter, though.

_ You don’t deserve this,  _ the voice reminds him icily at the same time as Peter unbuckles his seatbelt and takes the outstretched hand. Of course. Of course he would.

“I’m sorry for calling you sir,” Peter mumbles as Tony pulls him into a standing position. He doesn’t let go of Peter’s hand. “I’m -”

And then, before he can even formulate another apology in the back of his head, much less say it about, Tony’s pulling him forward by his arm and wrapping his arms around him. Peter’s head hits the man’s chest a little awkwardly at first before settling into it’s typical position underneath Tony’s chin, just like how it always does whenever they hug. His arms move around to grip the back of Tony’s shirt, fisting handfuls of the material without him even having to think about it. He can feel one of Tony’s hands wrapping around his shoulders and the other reaching up to rest at the base of his neck, fingers curling through the base of his hair a little and Peter’s vaguely aware of something inside him unraveling or snapping or crumbling away or whatever, really. He’s not sure if it matters because he’s here and Tony’s arms are around him and his hand is running up and down his back and he’s saying something that Peter can’t really hear over the sounds of what has to be him full out  _ sobbing _ but the vibrations that Tony’s voice send his body feel heavy and strong and comforting and -

And he doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve this, Tony shouldn’t be being nice to him, he has to fix this, Morgan is still gone and Harley’s in danger and he has to fix this  _ now _ .

“Peter,” Tony says and suddenly Peter  _ can _ hear him speaking. He’s saying his name, over and over again, muttering it into his hair as Tony pulls him closer and closer. “Peter.”

“I’m sorry -” he tries again and the words feel heavy and slurred and he grips onto Tony tighter as another sob work through him and it’s bad, it’s so bad, everything is so bad and he’s so tired and Tony is here and he shouldn’t be but he is and Peter’s so tired and he can taste salt in his mouth and he just keeps crying and crying and crying. 

Tony shushes him - not angrily, or anything, but gently, kindly and Peter can feel his heart breaking over and over again. 

_ Your fault, your fault, all of this is your fault and you really think you deserve this? _

“It’s not your fault,” Tony whispers like he can hear Peter thoughts, hand smoothing over the back of his neck. “It’s not your fault, kid, it’s not your fault, so sorry, I’m so sorry I - I fucked up, kid, I’m so sorry; it’s not your fault, you’ve - you’ve done so good, Pete, it’s -”

“I -” Peter chokes out and then realizes he doesn’t really want to talk anymore, doesn’t even know if he  _ can _ . He just presses his face down onto Tony’s shoulder and tries to breathe right.

He can’t - not really. Every inhale is coupled with the flash of white and grey he saw before the train hit, the taste of blood bubbling in his mouth and his broken bones shifting as he tried to move and breathe and the sound of Beck’s sneering voice as he spits out  _ sucker  _ over and over again on repeat. Each exhale is coupled with the bomb blast and the debris and the  _ how old is she?  _ and his hands closing around nothing as Morgan disappears again and again and this is so bad, everything is so bad and he just doesn’t know what to do anymore and he’s so tired and scared and alone,

“I got you,” Tony mutters, voice cutting through the whirling fog of his thoughts. He can feel the man’s cheek on his head. “I got you, kid, I got you, you’re safe, you’re safe, nothing’s gonna happen, okay? I’m here and I’m so sorry and it’s gonna be okay, everything’s gonna be okay; I got you, I got you,”

_ You’re safe, _

_ You don’t deserve this. _

“I’m sorry,” he gasps into Tony’s neck and the man just gives a noise that sounds like his breath is tearing in half at the back of his throat.

He tried to say something else - another apology, probably - but the words get lost somewhere in the back of his mouth. His chest is aching and his lungs feel like they’re on fire and his head is pounding in time with his leg and he can’t really stand anymore. He tries to grab onto Tony and they stagger a bit and there’s a lot of movement that’s lost on him - he passes out, maybe.

When he comes to, he’s back in the car and the trees have turned back into blurs beside him. His breath rattles in his chest and the figure of Tony next to him slips in and out of focus.

A hand rests on his cheek, thumb swiping under his eye. It smooths his hair out of his eyes and comes to rest at the top of his head.

“Sleep,” a voice - Tony’s, Tony’s voice - says softly. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

He nods semi-consciously and collapses against the corner of the seat and the car door. Inhales, then exhales. The hand doesn’t leave the top of his head.

It’s only as he’s on the brink of passing out, too far gone to say or do anything or even form a coherent thought that he realizes Tony, with his eyes back on the road and his hand still carding silently through Peter’s hair, has been crying this whole time, too.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m literally going to get murdered for this chapter....i wrote it at 1 am listening to phoebe bridgers and it is so SAD for no reason...this whole chap is just senseless angst IM SORRY...but anyways tony is being good again...god bless<3
> 
> also! posted another chap of for dramatic purposes pls read...it’s my new baby<3 ALSO i have a tumblr which i yell about tony stark a lot on u should check it out....it is @tnyystark...talk 2 me


	13. XIII

Peter sleeps the rest of the drive to Harley’s house.

It relieves Tony on a lot of levels, most of them selfish. One, Peter is sleeping which means Peter isn’t talking which means Peter isn’t apologizing a billion times over; his guilt and grief isn’t physically tangible to Tony gets within a five foot radius of the kid, strong enough to knock him off his feet. Two, Peter is asleep which means he’s not talking which means Tony doesn’t have to talk back, doesn’t have to make conversation or talk about what’s going on or figure out a justification for the _beyond_ shitty way he’s been acting for the past few days. Three, if Peter is asleep Tony can do an equally shitty thing which is sort of pretend he’s not there, thereby pretending the past few days have not happened and there is nothing wrong and no one is missing and he’s just driving down to see Harley like he always does whenever he has a weekend to spare. And four - the only non-shitty, non-selfish reason on his list - Peter is sleeping which means Peter is finally resting and probably not under the significant amounts of pain and stress he has been for the past few days.

Which, again, is all Tony’s fault, and if Peter’s sleeping he can kind of pretend it’s not, at least for a little.

The pretending thing works for all of six seconds and then Tony has to swerve to avoid crashing into a roadsign - wincing as Peter’s head jerks awkwardly about for a few seconds; _fuck,_ can he not cut the kid a break for more than _six seconds?_ \- because his vision keeps blurring with tears and he finally decides to throw in the towel and pull over.

It’s not like an extra five minutes will kill them anymore, right? They’re fucked either way, really, right?

Tony’s half-aware of pulling open the door and staggering out onto the tarmac. The surrounding road is silent, the above streetlights glimmering off the white lines cutting through the black of the road, making them almost glow through the darkness. It’s cold - cold by summertime midwest standards, at least, he dimly registers - and the breeze ruffles his hair a little, makes his eyes sting.

Or that could be because he’s crying. Because he is - a lot - and it registers on some fractional scale that he hasn’t cried yet, that he didn’t cry when he woke up and felt the terrifying lack of a right arm all over again and felt the emptiness in the room before he saw it, noticed the tangible feeling of _something’s - some_ one _is missing_ before he even managed to figure out who. He didn’t cry when he did, even as it felt like his chest was splitting open and his world was inverting and some part of him was just shutting down, turning all his systems offline until the most he could do was get out a few words to the back of Peter’s neck before he had to turn away and leave, body on autopilot, brain barely registering anything around him. He didn’t cry then, either, even as the last active part of him _screamed_ in protest at the way he froze Peter out, refusing to look into the kids eyes, _screamed_ that he was beign selfish and stupid and _Peter fucking needs you, for god’s sake, wake up and_ help _him_. He didn’t cry as the kid apologized time and time again on their walk to the safe house, didn’t cry as he surveyed the damage and heard Karen’s worry-lilted voice tell him that, if Peter’s leg didn’t receive proper treatment soon, they were looking at potential long-term mobility damage, didn’t cry as he made the leg brace and put it on the kid with shaking hands. He didn’t cry as he built the surveillance system and programmed the bot he set up to explain everything to Happy and Pepper when they woke. He didn’t cry as he sat down next to Pepper and explained in his own, shaky words what was going on, what they had to do even thought she was out for the count and probably couldn’t hear a word of what he was saying. 

He really, really tried not to cry as he explained what Beck had done. What he had taken. _Who_.

 _Morgan,_ he had finally said, her name falling out of his mouth so heavily and brokenly it was half a wonder that Pepper didn’t jerk awake at the sound of it. _He got Morgan - took her. Don’t - we don’t know. If she’s alive, that - that is. We don’t know. I don’t know._

He had barely registered what he was saying then. Words had exited his mouth, hands had clenched and unclenched on Pepper’s blankets, around her hand, and he has barely been able to tell why. _Morgan_ _is_ _gone_ , he had said, over and over again, but none of it felt real. Just words. Just words in the same way that explanations about his various nightmares he would give to Pepper were. It didn’t feel real. 

And Tony hadn’t cried once. Maybe that was the good thing about everything feeling like it had shut down - at least he couldn’t cry. He could open up space in his mind to do one thing at a time - the security system, the brace, the bot, talking to Pepper, checking the records - and that was it. No room for anything else. No room for processing, thinking, realizing that this is real - horrifyingly, nightmarishly real. No room for anything but breathing and living his hands onto the next task. No room for fucking _tears_ , least of all.

But he’s crying now, silently and endlessly, and a part of him remembers this feeling in the way one remembers being stabbed in the stomach, or whatever. With an aching, painful familiarity, a familiarity that feels so wrong and heavy and unnatural that a part of you just wants to collapse under the weight of it. 

The rotation between silent tears and bare-functionality, all constantly coupled with the feeling of jagged tear opening up right through the center of his chest, like someone cracked open his ribcage and squeezed his lungs shut with their fist, reminds him of his sojourn being stranded in space. It reminds him of the twenty two days spent killing about that ship, hands working ceaselesley to bring them home up to the point where he couldn’t see straight from lack of air. It reminds him of the hazy first few days back on earth, of IV tubes and Pepper’s worry and of Steve saying something that was stupid and annoying and didn’t fucking matter because Peter’s face was up on the hologram screen along with the rest of the disappeared and Tony could still feel his ash on his hands, underneath his nails, filling his lungs and he was gone; Peter was fucking gone.

It reminds him of the last time he failed like this.

It reminds him of the last time he lost one of his kids.

At some point Tony’s body hits the tarmac, forehead pressed up one of the white stripes of paint and he sobs, openly and loudly - Peter’s practically in a coma after having not slept for three days; it’s not like he’s going to wake him, or anything - the motions sending painful shudders through him and he half-wonders, curled up there, eyes burning and throat aching and chest collapsing in on itself again and again and again, if this is what dying feels like.

Then he remembers that he _knows_ what dying feels like, and it didn’t hurt as much as this at all and, for some reason, that just makes him cry harder.

At some point he pulls himself to his feet, still crying - silently now - and reenters the car. Turns it back on, pulls back onto the main road, and keeps driving. At some point he reaches back over to the sleeping form of Peter and gently continues dragging his hand through the boy’s hair. At some point he remembers that they’ve barely spoken since the bomb and a wave of guilt mixed with anger hits him so hard that he has to clench the wheel until his knuckles burn white to stop himself from swerving again. At some point he remembers that Morgan is fucking gone and _dead_ for all he knows and the pit opens back up underneat him and he’s falling, collapsing into nothingness and, _god_ _, I should really not be operating this vehicle,_ he thinks with a dazed laugh, even though absolutely nothing is funny about this right now. At some point he remembers that Morgan is _still_ gone and that’s the funny thing about Tony, really: no one close to him seems to end off better than they started and he has the sneaking fucking suspicion it’s because of him. Pepper fell 200 feet to her death. Happy was almost killed in the Extremis explosion. Rhodey got paralyzed by a fight he wasn’t able to stop. Harley’s deadbeat, piece-of-shit dad came back one night a few years ago and nearly killed the boy while Tony was stuck in New York, oblivious to everything. Peter almost died a billion and a half times, then really _did_ die once, in Tony’s arms, on a planet he was too slow and too _stupid_ to stop the teen from coming to. And now, just as he’d gotten Peter back, Morgan’s gone.

And then, suddenly, even being within five feet of Peter makes him feel sick because he’s Anthony Edward Stark and the only thing that comes out of being close to him is a lifetime worth of shit and Peter is good - so, so heartbreakingly _good_ and kind and gentle and soft and Tony cannot let himself be the one to rob the world of all that. Peter has to survive. Peter cannot get trapped under a collapsed car park again, cannot almost burn to death on Coney Island again, cannot turn to dust again, cannot fight a battle no child should fight again, cannot get hit by a train again, cannot continue to be put in danger time and time again simply due to the fact that Tony just can’t stop bringing nothing but pain and hurt and death into the lives of everyone he loves.

Which is so, _so_ melodramatic, but it’s been a _long_ fucking week and Tony’s kind of past the point of caring about things like melodrama. He’s done caring about most things, really. 

Except for the boy sitting next to him, a frown still cutting through his brow even as he sleeps, so he slowly retracts the hand from his hair and places it back on the wheel, furiously ignoring the burning in his throat and the empty feeling that yawns on inside his chest because, slowly but surely, Tony’s starting to realize what happens to people he cares about. And Morgan’s gone and he can’t feel anything because of it, can’t think or see or breathe right, and he’s pretty sure that if something happens to Peter now, he’s finally going to be finished. He’s finally going to hit the ground of the tunnel he’s been falling through the past few days and his body is going to break and he’s just going to be finished.

At some point they arrive in Tennessee, then Rose Hill, then they’re outside Harley Keener’s house and Tony stops the car, wheels skidding against the tarmac. Tony unlocks the doors, steps out and around to Peter’s side, carefully removes the teen from his seat and, after a moment of pause, picks him up bridal style and kicks the door shut behind them.

Harley is standing on the porch armed with what looks like a sawed-off shotgun. The boy is sixteen. His hair is growing into his eyes, curling around his ears and his eyes are wide and bright and brown, just a few shades darker than Tony’s, and he’s wearing a faded-looking grey t-shirt and sweatpants that look a little like a pair Tony once had he looks more furiously scared than Tony’s ever seen and something inside him just keeps breaking and breaking and breaking.

 _My fault_.

“Something tells me that thing isn’t loaded with potatoes,” he hears himself say as he approaches Harley.

The boy doesn’t laugh. “Is he okay?”

Tony doesn’t look down at Peter in his arms. “Not really.”

“Are _you_ okay?”

Tony huffs, stepping up onto the porch. “Always, Keener.”

Harley doesn’t look convinced. He’s white-knuckling the barrel of the rifle, clinging onto it like his life depends on it, and Tony knows for a fact that Harley hates guns, has always hated them ever since his dad took him hunting when he was five and he doesn’t look like he’s slept any longer than Tony has and something inside him twists - hard. 

“I’m sorry,” Tony mutters, eyes on a crack in the wood of the porch they’re standing on. “This isn’t - this is awful. _Fuck_ \- the fact that you’re going through this, I - I shouldn't have let it happen. I should’ve -”

“Hey,” Harley mutters, dropping the gun a little and closing the distance between them. “It’s okay. I’m fine, old man. Nothing to worry about.”

But, even as Harley grins crookedly up at him, there's a weird shake to his voice that Tony’s never heard and it takes a second for the fact that he is just a kid, just a sixteen year old kid who has been through so much - _both_ the kids have - to register and the collapsing feeling starts up again and all Tony can think of for a few seconds is that all he has ever wanted to do is keep Karley and Peter and Morgan and everyone else safe and all he has ever done is failed to do so, miserably, time and time again.

He just swallows. Nods. Rubs his thumb along the back of Peter’s neck.

“He needs rest,” Tony says after a pause. 

Harley jerks his head in agreement, mountain of curls bobbing up and down, and finally lowers the shotgun, wordlessly waving a hand towards the half-open door leading inside. Tony ducks his own head in an equally wordless thanks and moves towards inside. He pretends he doesn’t notice the way Harley stays outside long after Tony enters the kitchen, eyes silently scanning the peaceful neighborhood like Beck is going to pop out from behind one of the trash cans opposite to them - which he totally could and they wouldn’t be any the wiser, really. He pretends that he doesn’t notice the way Harley’s hands twist as he paces around the kitchen as Tony returns downstairs, checking locks and deadbolts and windows and an intricate system of wires and hooks running around the frame of each point of exit that Tony should definitely ask about - _wants_ to ask about - but can’t find the energy to even look up for longer than five seconds, let alone talk. He pretends to ignore the way Harley picks at his nails and mutters to himself and flinches at every passing car, every noise coming from outside, every time the pipes bang or the sink gurgles or a light overhead flickers, shadows shooting across the room because Harley hates being noticed when he’s like this, hates being fussed over and worried about and scrutinized. And Tony should be doing all of those things - and the part of him that’s still operational, still able to have more than two thoughts at a time without having a meltdown _is_ \- but he can’t speak and can’t think and can’t really breathe that well and all he really knows at this point is that things are so, so bad right now and most of it is on Tony.

 _Most_. All. 

At some point, Tony lets his head hit the table he’s sitting at. At some point, Harley sits down next to him and Tony really should ask if he’s okay, if he’s been eating enough and sleeping enough and if the allowance Tony is sending is enough and if his piece-of-shit dad is bothering him anymore and if his sister is doing okay and having fun at Columbia but the second he opens his mouth, a weird, strangled sob he didn’t even realize was inside of him comes out, so he just presses his lips back together again and grits his teeth.

 _Morgan is gone. Morgan is gone. Morgan is gone_.

Maybe if he says it enough it will finally feel real and he’ll be able to do what he always does in the face of crisis - pick his ass up and fix things. 

But it doesn’t feel real. Nothing feels real. Everything is a million miles away and he’s been falling for days now, trapped in some endless whirl of blackness and disjointed flashes of debris exploding and is hands reaching out to pull Morgan closer to him and closing just a few feet too far, of a painful jolt shooting up his arm, of Pepper’s bruised, sleeping face, of Peter’s guilt and broken leg and jumbled slew of apologies that should’ve been coming from Tony, not him, of tarmac and fire and Quentin Beck. None of it feels real. This is a nightmare. This is just a nightmare.

This is a nightmare and Morgan is gone, his daughter is gone; his second chance, his future, the best thing to ever happen to him is _gone._

At some point, Harley’s hand reaches silently across the table to grab his. Tony squeezes it - hard and it almost doesn’t even register that the boy squeezes back harder.

At some point, he closes his eyes.

At some point, he falls asleep, and his dreams are filled with his daughter, his Morgan, falling into clouds of smoke and flames, screaming for Tony to save her, over and over again.

* * *

* * *

“What the fuck have you been doing?”

Tony jerks awake to the sound of something heavy crashing down by his head and, for a second, he’s at the lake house again at the sky is raining ash and timbers and _he can’t find Morgan, can’t find anyone, can’t save anyone_ and then he’s back in the warm, early-morning glow of a kitchen smack dab in the middle of Rose Hill, Tennessee with Harley Keener glaring down at him, dish towel slung over his shoulder.

Tony exhales around something heavy in his lungs. 

_Morgan’s gone. She’s gone._

It still doesn’t feel real. Everything is still a million miles away. Awesome.

Tony raises his head, wincing at the stiffness in his neck, and studies the object Harley’s dropped in front of him. 

It’s a coffee mug. Written on the side, in block lettering is _WE’RE CONNECTED_ with a smiley face at the end. He had given it to Harley for Christmas before the snap and received a shit-eating grin and handmade sweater with a periodic table joke on it in return. 

Tony blinks, staring at the mug. 

“I just had a talk with Peter. What the _fuck_ have you been doing?” Harley repeats, folding his arms. His eyes are blazing as he pulls the chair opposite to Tony out from underneath the table and flings himself down in it.

Tony blinks again. His head hurts. “What’s the time?”

“Six in the morning. Answer my fucking question, Stark.”

“You woke me up at _six_ in the fucking morning?”

“In case you’d forgotten, we’re currently being hunted by a homicidal maniac who wants to build a bomb and blow us all into the next century so, yeah, I woke you up at six in the morning. Deal with it.”

Oh, right. _That._

“Wanna answer my question now?” Harley says, spreading his hands across the table and leaning in to Tony slightly. There’s a red stain on his dish towel that could be blood but also could be tomato sauce and everything feels too loud and too quiet at the same time and Tony’s head is spinning and he really, really needs to stand up and start fixing this mess _now_ but it feels like he can’t so much as breathe properly, let alone stop Beck.

“What question?” he deflects, staring at the distowel. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to say. Morgan is gone and he doesn’t know what he’s feeling anymore. 

“Oh, we’re gonna be like that today? Alright, fine, here’s it in nice and simple terms: what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. What’s wrong with you?”

“Jesus Chirst, how old are you - _five?_ You’re being a dick. Calling you a dick might be too nice, actually. Why? What’s wrong?”

Harley’s completely right - he’s being a dick and then some - and the remaining rational part of Tony is beating himself over the head with a shovel _screaming_ that this is Harley and Harley is safe and Tony can talk to him and be honest and explain what’s happening and how the world feels like it’s happening a million miles away and Morgan is gone and he doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know anything aside from the fact that Peter is, by definition, _good_ and all Tony seems to be able to do right now is put the kid in danger time and time again and he just _can’t_ keep doing that right now; he can’t lose Peter again and if that means keeping him at arms lenght and feeling like the worst fucking person on the planet - rightfully so - then so be it.

And Tony’s still not really there and nothing is real and all he wants is Harley to just leave - leave and take Peter and get somewhere safe and far away from Beck and his bomb and just stay there until Tony fixes this all. He wants Harley - and Peter by extension - to be angry, to walk away, to stop caring about Tony long enough for him to be able to do whatever he has to do to make this right. So, without really trying, without even being _conscious_ of him doing so, Tony opens his mouth. 

“What’s with this newfound desire to suddenly talk about our fucking feelings, huh, Keener?” he hears himself snap and _fucking_ shit _,_ the rational part of him hisses, _can you please, please shut up now?_ “I thought you didn’t like doing that?”

A sharp look of hurt flashes across Harley’s face before being clamped down by a scowl and Tony would be a hundred and seventy percent comfortable with flinging himself off the nearest high surface right about now; seriously, what the fuck is _wrong_ with him today?

 _You know,_ prompts a voice in the back of his head cooly. _They can’t be near you. They can’t be near you anymore. You’re a curse, Stark. A fucking curse._

And he’s been back in the land of the living for less than two weeks and Morgan’s still gone and Peter and Pepper are still hurt and everything has been blown to shit so maybe the voice isn’t totally wrong. 

“Alright,” Harley says again, jaw clenched. “You know, you being a pissbaby might work on convincing Parker into giving you a wide berth because, for some god-forsaken reason, he actually _respects_ you, but you’re gonna have to try harder with me, Tony. _What’s wrong?_

Tony swallows. He doesn’t know what to do. “Beck took Morgan. Don’t - don’t know how, or where, or _why_ , but - yeah.”

“I know,” Harley says simply, leaning back. He’s wearing an oversized MIT sweater with burn holes in the sleeves. Then, “Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?”

He can feel annoyance crackle off Harley for a split second before the kid goes back to neutral. “Like _this_ , Tony. Being a dick. Trying to - I don’t know, push everyone away, or whatever. Basically ignoring Peter for _three days_ , man, I mean, what the fuck? Peter’s scared out of his fucking _mind -_ not that he’d ever admit it, but still - and he’s hurt and stressed and seems to have had the idea that Morgan being taken and Beck blowing your house to smithereens is all _his_ fault which is, first off, _so_ not true and, second off, based off how _you’ve_ been acting, probably not that unfounded from his perspective. And I’ve known you for long enough to know that you’re physically incapable of not blaming yourself when something goes wrong within a mile of you and I _know_ you don’t think any of this is his fault so why the _fuck,_ then, are you running around turning your nose up at him and freezing him out three days? What the fuck do you think it’s going to achieve?”

Tony drops his face down onto his arms, head suddenly feeling like it weighs the same as a bowling ball. 

“It’s not his fault,” he says into his arms. Guilt is wrapping around his ribs, squeezing his chest together and on some faraway scale Tony registers it in the form of his suddenly irregular breath and spinning head. “It’s not Peter’s fault.”

Because it isn’t - of _course_ it isn’t. If he hadn’t come to the lake house Beck would’ve just found him wherever he was and killed him then, no questions asked. Or even if he had come and managed to stop Beck from taking Morgan - which isn’t and shouldn't even be his responsibility; the kid is seventeen and, if anyone, it’s _Tony_ who should’ve prepared for all this, _Tony_ who should’ve stopped the bomb from dropping, _Tony_ who should’ve saved Morgan - they’d still be in exactly the same boat now with just one more person. 

“Of course it isn’t,” Harley says, echoing his thoughts. “So why are you acting like it is?”

 _“Because,”_ Tony snaps, then stops. _Breathe._ “Because - god, okay. _Because_ he is seventeen years old and he’s already had a parking garage dropped on him, almost died in a plane crash, died in the middle of fucking space, and been tormented by a bitter ex-employee of mine who put him through the hell and back, got him hit by a train, and framed him for mass murder and continental destruction and he’s fucking _seventeen,_ Harley. He’s a child and I - and it’s not like it’s an _anomaly,_ or anything, I mean, fucking _look_ at it - Pepper’s almost died, like, three times because of me, my best friend since college is fucking paralyzed now because of me, my other best friend nearly died in an explosion because of me, my fucking _daughter_ is gone now because of me, and you’re stuck in this backwater town being treated like _shit_ every other day because of me, Harley, and this shit just keeps happening to everyone around me and I don’t know why or how and -” 

Tony swallows furiously. His throat is burning.

“- and I don’t know what to do, okay? I don’t know how to keep Peter, or Morgan, or you, or _anyone_ safe anymore. I fucking _died_ thinking it would finally do some good and it just really fucking didn’t because we’re all just back at square one and everyone’s in danger and I really can’t help but feeling that the longer Peter stays around me, the more danger he’s going to be in. I really can’t help but feeling that, after all these years, I haven’t fucking done anything to help him or keep him safe and he’s only been hurt over and over and over again - _because of me -_ and he is just - good, Harley. He is a good fucking kid - so are you, so is fucking Morgan - and I really cannot live with the notion that i’m gong to be the one to take that away from the world if I keep this up. I just - I can’t be the one to do that. And he - you, everyone - can’t - he just has to stop. He needs to take a break. I need him to stop chasing down Beck and stop chasing me because I don’t know how to keep him safe and I can’t have him in any more danger and this shit with Beck is - _bad_ , Harls, it’s really bad and I don't want anyone getting involved anymore and I - god. I need him to just - _go_. Go home. Get somewhere safe.”

”And you think being a dick is going to make that happen?”

”I don’t know. I don’t know. But I’d rather he hate my guts then end up dead by the end of this week. I’d rather that for _both_ of you.” 

“Okay, well - listen,” Harley says matter-of-factly, standing up and startng to pace slow laps aroind the kitchen, waving his hands around. “Sometimes shit happens and sometimes, yeah, that shit might be because of you. If you were to, like, I don’t know, go up to Beck and be all like, _hey man, you know Peter Parker? Yeah, hit him with a fucking train_ , then yeah, maybe I’d agree with you. But, man, look, if it wasn’t for you, Peter wouldn’t have come back from the snap. _I_ wouldn’t have come back. And if it wasn’t for you _again_ , maybe every single person you just mentioned would be dead and that oversized grape with a god complex would running the world. I know it’s - from your perspective, I know it might feel like everything’s all your fault and you suck and Morgan’s gone because of you and you’re ruining Peter’s life and gonna get him killed or whatever, but Morgan’s - first of all, Morgan’s _not_ gone - Morgan’s _currently not with us_ because of _Beck_. Because Beck is weird and crazy. And for every time you think you’ve fucked up Peter’s life, I’m sure he has, like, ten examples of times you made it so much better.” Harley swallows and stops, looking Tony dead in the eye. “I know that’s the case for me, at least.”

Tony exhales. His throat is still burning. He still doesn’t know what to do. He still wants Peter to run away and never look back and just fucking _leave_ and be _safe_. Then inhales, then, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Awesome. Join the club,” Harley huffs. “You really think Peter’s gonna fault you for that? He said as much to me - he’s a kid and he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing which makes _sense_ ‘cause, you know, he’s a _kid_ and there’s no fuckin’ book on how to be a superhero, Tony. Or on how to be a good father stand-in slash mentor slash helicopter parent slash _whatever_ you wanna call yourself. You do what you think is right and, yeah, sometimes it totally isn’t. Case and point - this! You think freezing Peter out is going to keep him safe? Nope! Totally, completely wrong there, dude. And that’s fine, Tony, ‘cause you’re just a fuckin’ human. You’re gonna mess up. You’re gonna mess up with him. He’s not asking for you to be perfect - literally _no one_ who matters is. What is is asking for is for you to just be there. And he can protect himself, you know. He’s a pretty capable dude - so am I. You - shit’s gonna happen to us sometimes, Tony. It sucks, but it will. The best you can do sometimes it just, I don’t know, be there to help in the aftermath, or whatever.”

Harley swallows again, cracks his knuckles, and then sits down, still staring at Tony. “I know this is fucked up. The thing with Morgan, I know that’s really fucked up and he’s not asking you to be, like, normal, or anything. He’s just - he wants you to talk to him. _I_ want you to talk to him. I know _I_ , for one, am going to beat you up if we all die in three days and you spend those three days pushing him away ‘cause you think that’s gonna make him hate you, or whatever, ‘cause that’s dumb. It won’t.

”And I honestly don’t mean to, like, tell you you’re being stupid - even if I kind of _am_ because you kind of _are_ \- because, like I said, I know this is really, really fucked up. And - shit, Tony, it's not your fault, okay? This - _all_ of this, everything you just talked about, the shit with _me_ , for god's sake, isn’t because of you. Bad shit happens sometimes and, again like I said, it really sucks, but it’s not because of you. You can’t stop it all the time, man, you’re only human. You’re human and Peter’s human and you like _him_ a lot and he likes _you_ and he fucking _needs_ you, dumbass, and you need him and - and nothing gonna happen to him because you’re there, okay? You’re not a fucking magnet for bad stuff, or whatever you think. That’s not how things work. He’s gonna do whatever he wants no matter how much distance you put in between you guys. He’s gonna go after Beck even if you tell him you fucking hate him so what’s the point in pushing him away, you know? ‘S just - stupid, ‘s all I’m saying.”

Tony opens his mouth to do something - not entirely sure what, really - but, before he can so much as get a breath out a voice sounds from somewhere out of sight.

“Uh, guys?”

Both Tony and Harley flinch at the sound of a voice descending from the stairs. For a second Tony’s half convinced it’s Beck, or something, but then the undersized frame of Peter Parker comes into view, slightly perturbed expression in his face.

“Thank god,” Tony mutters to himself. The conversation with Harley was starting to make his whole body ache and his chest feel like it was rapidly depressurizing. He can’t - not right now. Harley’s a good kid, and Tony does believe he’d never lie to him, but - no. Not right now. No time for wishful thinking right now.

 _You're a curse, Stark_.

Not right now.

_You couldn’t live with the weight of your own failure._

Yeah, _no_. Tony grits his teeth.

Peter stops on the second to last step and gives them both long, slow stares. 

“Um,” he says loudly, blinking. His hair is sticking up on end, dark with water. There’s droplets on his shirt - one of Harley’s shirts, actually - and his cheeks are a little pink. It makes him look years younger which contrats painfully with the frown cutting through his brow and the bruise-like shadows under his eyes which make him look years older. Tony’s stomach twists painfully. “Just an, uh, FYI, we should probably go. Like, now.”

A spike of panic shoots through Tony - still dull, still far away, but just a little sharper now - and he stands, nearly knocking over the untouched coffee mug. “What’s going on?”

Peter blinks at him, something unreadable crossing his face for a second. “I - well, I had Karen basically put up a - force field thingy around the house, kind of - it’s complicated, whatever. Point is, she’s telling me she’s getting some - disturbances? Someone’s trying to ping the location of the house. I think it’s him.”

And, just like that, Tony snaps into action. Reaching across the table to grab the coffee mug, he knocks back half of the contents in one mouthful and stands up, ignoring Peter and Harley’s slightly disturbed glaces.

“Okay, showtime,” he says, swallowing another mouthful. “Harley, you go find the reactors. Peter - go into Harley’s garage and get any tool you can find that we normally use to make modifications on the suit. Both of you go to the car once you’re done. I’ll get soe essentials.”

The two nod and run off in opposite directions, Peter’s gaze lingering on him until he turns the corner and rushes into the garage. Tony finishes off the coffee and, trying to ignore the way his hands have started shaking and his throat has started tightening unhelpfully, digs around in the cabinets for a minute until he finds Harley’s emergency kit. Dumping it out of the cardboard box it sits in and blowing off a layer of dust - most of Harley’s emergency plans consist of simply arming himself with assorted weaponry and waving it at whatever emergency in question is happening, not using an actual, designated emergency kit - Tony slings the bag over his shoulder, tosses his mug in the sink, surveys the room one last time, and heads out the front door to the car.

Harley and Peter are already there, tossing things into the trunk haphazardly. He tries not to wince too much as Harley throws what looks like a grocery bag on top of the Iron Man helmet, eliciting a tiny _crunch_ from the machinery, and just puts the emergency kit in the back and moves up to the front of the car.

Five seconds later they’re all in, Harley taking the back seat with a pointed glare to Tony and Peter resuming his position in shotgun. They both look tense and tired.

Tony sighs. Then turns the car on, pulls out of the parking spot, and starts barreling down the road in silence. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally.....do not know what it is but this chapter is just Not good SORRY....i can’t  
> write grief well Idk....i do love writing harley and tony interactions....i think they’d have such an interesting dynamic considering how they met and how long they’ve known each other at this point also Yes harley got snapped away also yes he is like a year ish younger than peter (i put him at like  
> 10/11 years old in im3 idk) 
> 
> also!!!! the amount of support this fic has gotten has been!!! MINDBLOWING!! you guys are so NICE and SWEET and SUPPORTIVE i am Floored thank you all so much....<333333


	14. XIV

The silence, as it turns out, lasts an impressive ten minutes. 

Honestly, Tony shouldn’t be surprised. He isn’t surprised. Regardless of the given circumstances, Harley Keener is still Harley Keener, and Tony’s semi-convinced that the Harley Keener he knows is physically incapable of staying silent for longer than a quarter of an hour before a blood vessel in him ruptures from the stress of it all. 

It starts out as comforting - the silence that hung heavy in the car for those ten minutes made Tony feel like he was slowly being flattened out into the the bottom of his seat and he could feel Peter’s gaze on him every other minute, heavy and indecipherable - and, after about three and a half seconds, becomes anything but. After a further three and a half seconds, Tony’s seriously debating how logical it would be to turn around and deposit Harley back at his house. 

Okay, not seriously debating. But still. 

“Would you - fucking  _stop it?”_ Tony hisses as yet another series of muffled kicks land squarely on his back. Each motion sends a dull spike of pain through him, stopping alternatively between the the base of his right arm where it meets the prosthetic and his temple. 

Harley does, in fact, not  _stop it_ . Tony can hear a heavy shuffling, which he can only assume is the boy sliding further down in his seat, before he feels two twin sources of pressure drive into the small of his back. Harley’s given up on the kicking route and settled with just planning his feet on the back of Tony’s seat, then. 

“Stop what?” the boy chirps, voice light and airy. 

“Feet off the seat.  _Now_ ,” he instructs, stretching up a little to give Harley a glare through the review mirror. He’s met with the trademark shit-eating grin and a renewed push on his back. The seat creaks in protest, leaning forward a little. 

_ “ Keener _ _,”_ he says, careful to keep any genuine anger out of his voice, not that there’s any to keep out; there never is with Harley, really. “Cut it out.”

“I’m just stretching, Tony,” Harley protests, the shit-eating grin in question widening. “No harm in that.”

“I’ll show you some _harm_ if you don’t get your feet off my seat, Keener -“

“Woah,  _violent_ _.”_ Harley huffs and straightens up, his face shifting out of the view of the review mirror. Now Tony’s view consists of part of his chin, neck, and the collar of his shirt. He can tell the boy is still grinning. “Is he always like this, Petey-pie?”

“I’m offended by that nickname, first of all,” Peter says. He’s staring out the window at the passing trees and telephone poles - has been for the whole drive thus far, in fact - but Tony can see the ghost of a smile on his face in the pale reflection. “And second of all, no. You’re just being a child.”

Tony snorts. 

“Hey!” Harley whines. “I am not a  child .”

“Fine, would you prefer the more accurate description of  five-year-old-on-crack?”

“I’m not a five year old!”

“Really?” Tony can see Peter’s own smile widening, the corners of his eyes creasing a little as if the expression practically splits his face open and Tony decides right then and there that it’s the best thing he’s ever seen. “Sure look like one. Plus, you’re, like, four feet tall.”

“I’m not  _four feet tall!_ I’m five foot seven!”

“Coulda fooled me, munchkin.”

“I’m literally going to kill you,” Harley says, voice dripping in mock-seriousness. He shifts down in his seat so his face is back in the review mirror again and gives Tony a very poor attempt at a threatening glare. “You too, old man. Your time is up.”

“Many have tried, none have - unfortunately - succeeded. I’m sure you won’t be the last,” Tony drawls, shifting lanes. 

“Yeah, plus, what are you gonna do? Kick me in the kneecaps?” Peter finally pulls away from the window to give Harley an amused smirk. “You’re too tiny to do anything else.”

“Keep asking and I just might,  _ bitch -” _

And so on. Never before would Tony describe the sounds of two teenagers exchanging streams of increasingly colorful language - Tony would ask who taught Peter Parker to curse like that before he realizes that it was probably him - and vague threats of violent comforting, but here he is. More to the point, though, it is comforting. Their bickering, the occasional swipes they take at each other, Peter’s endless amounts of long-suffering eye rolls and Harley’s dopey grins all make Tony feel like this is, well, normal. Like he’s finally - after many months of silent deliberation and debate as to whether or not the kids would actually like each other and what on earth he would do if they didn’t - decided to drive Peter down to Rose Hill and introduce him to Harley. Like they’ve all decided to pack themselves into Harley’s beat-up SUV and take a road trip up and down the coast, or something. 

Like nothing is wrong and no one is missing and Tony hasn’t potentially fucked up one of the most important relationships to him on the planet. Like Pepper and Morgan are at home, safely tucked away in the lake house having a girl’s week, or whatever they do wish to do in Tony’s absence. Like Beck never came and Thanos never happened and Tony never died and everything was just beautifully, achingly normal. 

Which it isn’t, of course. Several things are wrong. Morgan is not at the lake house - she’s god-knows where and Tony can’t think about it for more that six seconds without feeling like his chest is collapsing in on itself, so he doesn’t - and Pepper is in a safe-house in the middle of fuck all, Pennsylvania, hurt and confused and probably scared out of her goddamn mind. He _has_ fucked things up with Peter - the tenseness radiating off him and the kid’s refusal to look him in the eye for longer than a split second is an aching testimony to that, if nothing else. Beck  did come, Thanos _did_ happen , Tony _did_ die and come back and is still left with the ceaseless ache in the back of his chest; the reminder that, out of everyone who died, every hero and warrior and noble, selfless, good person who  _died_ , he was the one who fate spun the fucking wheel for and resurrected. 

_I shouldn’t be alive. Unless it was for a reason_. 

If nothing, he was right when he said that all those years ago. At the time he had mostly been talking out of his ass, speaking to some vague feeling that had settled over him the second he left that cave that he couldn’t name or understand or put a finger on. All he had known was that he had survived and it had to be for a reason, some greater purpose in the grand scheme of the universe. 

_(Because the idea that he had survived just_ because _made_ him feel sick, so there had to be a bigger reason.)

The reason had become unflinchingly clear as the years drew on. After New York it had started to take shape in the back of his mind, somewhere among the billions of mental blueprints for the next Iron Man mark and the endless loop of space and stars and a ring of blue and black in the sky. It had solidified even more as the months drew on, as Steve rammed his shield into Tony’s chest, as he lay in the ice and snow of the bunker with blood in his eyes and a hole opening up slowly in his chest. It had been thrown into agonizing relief on Titan and he had been ready, ready to bleed out with his own sword in his stomach and the Mad Titan’s hand on his head, voice rasping  _I hope they remember you, Stark._

The reason was, of course, to stop  _it_ . It - whatever _it_ was , whatever _it_ had been in the moment. Whether it was the Chitauri or Ultron or HYDRA or that Squidward guy or Thanos or  whatever \- his reason for surviving, for crawling out of that cave had been to stop  _it_ . To stop the endgame, to save the world, to do whatever thing he had to do to ensure everyone came back and fell right into place again with no more looming disaster or apocalypse hanging over their heads. 

He had thought of Yinsen when he snapped. The cave and the car battery and the perpetual smell of salt and rust and the feeling of electricity pounding through his body with every breath and the man - Yinsen - with his quick hands and kind eyes that Tony himself had seen the light fade out of. 

Which had been because of him, of course. And it hadn’t been just Yinsen’s death that had made the reason start to slowly take shape in the back of his mind, though Tony would be nothing more than a stupid, shitty liar to try and say it wasn’t a contributing factor. It was every life he had somehow managed to end before that. And every life after. 

Because the ending of lives never seemed to stop with him, even as he took up his metaphorical cross and flew nukes into wormholes and fought supercomputers with god complexes and his best friend and braced himself for death if it meant everyone else around him on that stupid planet could survive. The lives continued to be lost in the forms of the people from the Battle or New York, the people from Sokovia, the Wakandan soldiers who had died fighting Thanos’s army on earth, Gamora and Loki and Nat and every other person who had just fucking _died_ without Tony doing anything concrete to stop it. People continued to die for him, because of him. People continued to be hurt because or by or for him. 

And it hadn’t stopped after he _had_ died, apparently. Peter’s beeline into the woods and the haunted, terrified look in his eyes as Tony tried to coax him back inside - like he was looking at the personification of all his nightmares in the flesh - and his cracked and damaged body was a testament to that at the very least. 

And that wasn’t normal. _This_ isn't normal. They’re driving in a semi-stolen car from a SHIELD base none of them can technically be in because Tony’s, allegedly, still dead and Peter’s, allegedly and  _phenomenally_ inaccurately so, a mass murderer. There’s a bag of arc reactors and a broken Iron Man suit in the trunk and Tony doesn’t even know where they’re going or what’s happening or what Beck is planning or how to fix it before someone else dies because of him. 

So, yeah. Not normal. But it’s very nice to pretend, all the same. 

“Mr. Stark?” 

Peter’s voice is soft and laced with a hesitation Tony hasn’t heard in literal years at this point. Shy and awkward as the kid can be, _hesitant_ would never be a word Tony would choose to describe the Peter he’s gotten to know over the years. The tone throws him back into the past, back to the handful of conversations they had during their time together in Germany when hesitant was a word Tony would’ve used to describe him, combined weirdly with hyperactive, mind-blowingly intelligent, and one of the bravest kids Tony had ever met. He had, after five minutes of talking to the kid post-fight, decided to take Peter out for dinner at some restaurant he normally frequented when he was in the country, despite the fact that his whole left arm was numb and every time he thought about the day’s events the room around them started to spin. Peter had spoken to him softly and _hesitantly_ then, uncertainty mingled with the blast of adrenalin and excitement from the morning radiating off him in waves. They hadn’t known each other at that point - not really - and Tony was so out of it, so lost in the endless replay of the fight beforehand that he could barely concentrate on what the kid was saying to him, so Peter’s mannerisms made a hefty amount of sense, looking back at least. 

_Nice to know we’re back there, then,_ Tony thinks bitterly, guilt raising its head and starting to fill the cracks in between his ribs all over again.  _ Nice to know I’ve fucked this all up that badly .  _

“Mr. Stark?” Peter repeats and Tony wrenches himself back into the car, away from the crowding memories of Yinsen and Germany and Titan and the bomb blast. There’s a time and place for everything, and he’s decided the time and place for everything that’s happened - at least since he’s returned to the land of the living - might just have to be never. 

He turns and gives the kid a smile, the gesture fitting naturally on his face the second he even sees Peter. “The one and only. What can I do for you?”

Peter blinks back at him. His hair is still wet from the shower and Harley’s shirt, despite the two of them being the same size, is almost comically big on Peter, the sleeves stoping just before his elbows. Even the slew of half-healed cuts on his face - including the particularly nasty-looking one on his cheek - and the dark circles under his eyes can’t distract from the fact that, right now, Peter looks like exactly what he is. 

A child. 

_ A child you fucking ignored for three days because you were sad and stressed and fucking messed up .  _

Tony has to physically clamp his jaw down around the stream of apologies that threatens to explode out of him again. The atmosphere in the car, despite the end of the back-and-forth between Harley and Peter, is still light and happier than ever before and Tony sure as hell doesn’t want to ruin that now. 

“I -“ Peter starts, then blinks again, slowly closing his mouth. He pulls at a loose thread on the cover of his seat for a second, gaze carefully on his fingers. “I don’t know. You looked a little - in your head. Just wanted to - to make sure you were, y’know, here, and stuff.”

Tony’s often hit by the sheer force of his love for Peter at odd times. The first time he can remember was one workshop visit a couple days after the Toomes debacle. Peter had just been being Peter, running around the lab with tools gripped in his mouth and sparking pieces of circuitry for Tony’s suit in his hands and copper wires tucked behind his ears when he he had accidentally tripped over a wandering DUM-E and went flying. While both the floor, the circuitry, and DUM-E all survived the incident with no damage, the kid had still spent the next twenty minutes alternating between apologizing to the bot and to Tony who had, between furiously contained snickers and careful assurances that  _ everything’s fine, Peter, I just want to make sure you're not hurt, or anything _ _,_ realized how much he loved the kid standing in front of him. And that, given the context of Siberia and Steve and the still-healing jagged bruise running across his sternum, had been a terrifying through. The selfish part of him didn’t want to love Peter, didn’t want to get emotionally invested in another person only for them to somehow find a way to throw his feelings in his face, but he had nonetheless. And those moments had only increased in frequency. Soon they were coming up nearly every time Tony saw Peter - on lab days where Peter would ramble about school and his friends and Star Wars and the new chemistry formula he was testing out with Ned and May’s god-awful cooking and the flowers he was getting her for no reason at all, just because she was May and she deserves stuff like that, he said. On weekends where Peter would sleep over at the compound and force Tony to watch Jim Carrey movies, SNL reruns, and vine compilations while simultaneously charming the pants off Pepper and eating all their snacks. On joint-missions and patrol reports and the days where Peter would leave little post-it notes dotted around his lab, reminding him to sleep and eat enough, adorned with little smiley faces and copious amounts of exclamation points. On mother’s day, when Peter sent Pepper a bouquet of hand-picked flowers and a bottle of wine that May recommended. On father’s day, when Peter left a card for him tucked behind one of his workbenches that Tony read and reread and reread until tears of sheer, unadulterated love blurred his vision. On days where Peter was just so, wonderfully _Peter_ that Tony could barely speak around the weight of the realization that  _this is my kid and I love him so goddamn much._

He’s hit with the same force now, behind the wheel of the semi-stolen car with the  July sun beating down on his legs through the window and the sudden, mysterious lack of Harley’s continual rambling. 

He loves Peter. He loves this kid so fucking much. 

“I’m okay,” he finally says in a voice he hopes is a lot less misty-sounding then it feels. “All good here.”

Peter gives him a small smile. “Okay.” Then, “Can I turn on some music?”

Tony sort of wants to cry for some reason right then, but he carefully exhales and gives Peter another smile in return. “Of course, buddy. No need to ask.”

_I love you. I love you, I love you, I‘m sorry, I love you_. 

At some point he stops silently repeating that to Peter in his head and the face of Morgan takes his place. Morgan with her bright eyes and bubbly laugh that Tony wants to trap in a jar and keep on his desk forever like the lightening bugs she would chase during the summer with him and Pepper watching over her from the porch. Morgan with her astounding intelligence and thoughtfulness; Morgan with her creativity and beautiful mind and clever jokes and endless love for cherry flavored juice pops - orange as a close second. Morgan, his Morgan, his Morgan. 

His Morgan who is gone, who has disappeared somewhere at the hands of Quentin Beck; his Morgan who his hands missed by just a few inches; his Morgan who might never -

“Parker, what the _fuck_ is this?” Harley’s blissfully loud voice sounds from behind him, abruptly shattering Tony’s train of thought. The teen reaches around to thump the back of Peter’s seat, who just snickers and turns up the volume of the radio. 

“It’s Led Zeppelin,” the kid says over the music, flashing Tony a smile. “Kashmir. Mr. Stark likes it.”

Harley’s groan echoes around the interior of the car. “Fuck this. I can’t believe he’s gotten you hooked on all his stupid old man music. Play some ABBA or I’m gonna kill you.”

“ABBA? My _aunt_ listens to ABBA and she’s, like,  _old_ -”

“Music was actually invented in 1979 when the song Voulez-Vous was released so, uh,  fuck you -”

And just like that, things are normal again. 

————

They drove for a few more hours, Tony carefully fending off Harley’s persisting questions of  _where the fuck are we going, anyways?_ with vague hand waves and shrugs - he’s pretty sure Harley knows that Tony’s flying blind at this point, he just wanted something to ask about, anyways - and equally carefully keeping an only half-joking physical altercation from breaking out between the two boys as they warred over control of the radio. According to Peter, Harley’s music taste  _just slapped me in the face and told me I don’t know what real music is_ and, according to Harley, Peter’s music taste ran somewhere along the lines of what old people listen to when they’re trying to remember their ‘young and rebellious days.’ The mounting tension was only successfully diffused when, as they somehow verged onto the topic of what the best Queen album is, Tony casually brought up the story about the time he snuck backstage at a Queen concert and met Freddy Mercury. 

_“_ _The_ Freddy Mercury?” Peter has demanded at the exact same time Harley had leaned forward and said “why didn’t you tell us you were actually kind of cool, old man?” in his ear. 

Eventually, as Harley’s - and Peter’s, too - mounting energy only grew and grew, Tony decided it would probably be for the best if they stopped and grabbed some snacks and gas. He located the nearest rest stop and pulled up, Harley practically vibrating in the backseat. 

“Okay!” the boy had announced the second Tony put the car into park. “I’m gonna get some food for us! I’ll plug the car in and pay up front!”

And then he was gone, half-springing out of his seat, pausing for six seconds to insert the gas pump into the side of the car, and full on running into the gas station store. 

“I don’t know if he _really_ has to pee, or if he’s just like this all the time,” Peter mused quietly, watching Harley’s retreating back disappear behind sliding glass doors. 

“He’s always like this,” Tony affirmed, grinning. Peter huffed a little laugh and watched the storefront in silence. 

And then they lapsed into a quick silence. It hadn’t been like the other silences that had stretched out between them in the past few days, punctured by stabs of guilt and vague anger and upset on Tony’s end and confused, hurt, or just flat-out exhausted stares on Peter’s. It was softer, more comfortable. Peter’s gaze was glassy as he stared out the window, but not blank like it had been on the drive down to Rose Hill, broken only by flashes of guilt and grief so strong Tony had almost been able to taste them. He looks - _content_ , in a way, if any of them can truly be content right now. Relaxed, at the very least. 

Still, it’s silence, and Tony’s skin was starting to crawl after a few seconds of it. 

“When she was three, Morgan went missing for a day.” 

Tony feels himself clamp his jaw back down, totally unaware of the fact that he had opened it in the first place, much less started a story he hadn’t so much as thought about over the course of the following two years. After a week following the incident in question - hell, more like a day and a half, knowing Morgan at that age - the Stark family had swiftly moved on to the next Morgan-centric catastrophe of sorts, and any memories of that day had been thrown to the back of the pile, so to speak. 

So, yeah, where the fuck did that come from?

“Yeah?” Peter prompts, voice tinged with confusion mixed with concern, no-longer-glassy gaze fixed on him and Tony realizes he’s fallen silent after that kind of unfortunate line to lead with. 

He coughs and lets go of the wheel - he had been white-knuckling it again, despite the fact that they’d been at a standstill for a good couple of minutes now. 

“Yeah,” he says slowly. He has absolutely no idea where he’s going with this one. “It was definitely one of the lows in my parental career, I think, which is saying lot. I mean, that’s coming from the guy who let his kid bribe him into buying three quarts of ice cream with the money he was supposed to spend on cleaning supplies and alpaca feed on multiple occasions. But, yeah, low point. Like, an _actual_ low point, because we thought she was - you know. Missing, obviously, but upstate can get a little crazy - bears and other assorted wildlife apparently run rampant - so, you know. Stressful.”

Peter gives a hum of agreement. He’s shifted in his seat so that his back is pressed up against the window and his knees are extended out across the gearshift panel, almost pressed into Tony’s thigh. Without really thinking about it, Tony unbuckles his seatbelt, muttering something about it making his arm hurt - which it is, but, then again, his arm always hurts, so not his best excuse - and mirrors Peter’s position, their knees pressing together slightly. Peter smiles a little and Tony, still with no discernible direction to his story, keeps talking. 

“She - _god_ , it’s been a while, so I’m foggy on the details but, you know, as per Pepper’s wishes, we started a garden a couple months after moving. Well, _she_ did, but I somehow got roped into taking care of it too when she didn’t have the time and, that day, I think she was running around doing something with SI - disaster relief, I believe, helping people get acclimated after the snap - and I was, you know, gardening.”

“What a world,” Peter says, smirking a little. 

Tony rolls his eyes. “Yes, I know. My green thumb and I aren’t exactly legendary.”

“I’m still really confused as to how you managed to kill _every single houseplant_ I got you.”

“I blame DUM-E,” Tony huffs, rolling his eyes some more. “Stupid bot replaces every sustainable and healthy liquid with motor oil and calls it a day. But, anyways, with Pepper up to her ears in business associates and board members, I was on Morgan watching duty for the morning. So I took her out to the garden and told her to just run around for a couple of minutes while I attended to the carrots, or whatever. And, when I finished, I turned to take her back inside and she was just - gone.”

Peter hums again. The frown has resettled back on his brow, eyebrows scrunching together a little as he watches Tony. 

“Yeah,” Tony says again, nodding slowly. The day is starting to come back to him, the sharp spikes of panic and terror that had speared through him as soon as he had realized  _Morgan wasn’t fucking there_ crawling out of the back of his memory where he had put it. “I called Pepper and, well, general panic ensued. We ran around looking everywhere for her for about five, six hours before we eventually tracked her down. She had gone to the lake a couple minutes into the woods - I had taken her there a few days earlier and I guess she really liked it, seeing as she traipsed through the woods all by herself to get there.  _God_ , aged me about seventeen years, that did. And, well, anyways, after all that Miss Morgan Stark went on a bit of a lockdown. Pepper had more work and meetings to attend to, and I, well - after that day I wasn’t entirely confident in my abilities to stop her from running off again, so I kind of just kept her inside for the next day or two. Obviously, saying as Morgan was three and more hyperactive than _you_ on your best days, she didn’t take very kindly to not being able to run around the garden and dig up random worms to show me or whatever she wanted to do. Got a little -  _antsy_ , to say the least.” 

“Yikes,” Peter says with a small smile. 

Tony returns it. “Yikes indeed. She ended up taking out all her pent up energy in the form of drawing in permanent marker all over the walls. Pepper was, needless to say, not very pleased.”

Peter snickers a little. 

“Yeah, yeah, very funny. She half-whooped my ass for that. Nearly almost did - in a very loving and, uh,  _wife_ -ly way, of course - when she wormed the fact that I though her running away was all my fault out of me, which, you know, isn’t that far out of the ballpark. She was supposed to be under my watch then and I wasn’t paying attention and she bolted. Ended up being fine, by the way - she thought the whole thing was the funniest thing in the world - so I got over it pretty quickly, but if things had gone differently, well -”

“They didn’t, though,” Peter says quickly.“And that wasn’t your fault, anyways.” His knees press into Tony’s a fraction more. “She - I mean, you know. She did it herself, you know? She was just a kid - wasn’t, like, thinking about what she was doing, or whatever.”

Tony half-shrugs. “Sure. And it’s very easy to say that sort of looking back on the event, but it definitely didn’t feel like that in the moment. And, look - bottom line is that she’s my kid. My daughter. My whole purpose as a father is to protect her and keep her safe. Coming from a place where, you know, my mom did what she could and my dad  _really_ didn’t , I know what it feels like to not have that - sense of security from your parents, or whatever. And I never wanted that for Morgan - still don’t, always won’t. I want her to feel like I always have her back, like I’m always going to be her first line of defense. I feel like that with all my kids or pseudo-kids, which -”

Tony swallows, something heavy and sharp snaring around the back of his throat all of a sudden. Peter’s silent gaze is burning two twin holes through the center of his forehead. 

“Which, of course, includes you. You - I mean, biology didn’t quite make the cut and we’ve missed out on a couple of years - again, my fault - but - but still. I - see you just like I see Morgan. As - my kid. As -”

God, he is _not_ about to do this. He is not about to say this _now_ when they’re literally running for their lives and trying to stop the entirety of the western hemisphere from being wiped out. He is _not_ about to do this during the middle of his sudden inability to fucking apologize like a normal person without some ten minute long speech. He is _not_ about to say this. 

“As my son.”

Tony doesn’t have super hearing like the kid, or whatever, but it doesn’t take that to hear the fact that his breath has literally stopped. And Tony finds that his has too, so he keeps talking to fill the suddenly empty space in his chest. 

“And, of course, I understand it’s not quiet so linear on your end - I’m just some weird engineer-slash-superhero-slash-fake boss - if we’re sticking with the internship thing still - and your _actual_ father is dead and Ben only passed a few years ago and this is probably - ah, not _remotely_ what you needed to hear right now, okay,  okay . Let me - uh, cut to the chase.”

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit._

“I - the point of that, uh, sentimental Morgan anecdote was to illustrate the, uh, more passionately overprotective aspects of my personality. I mean, it’s totally true - I’m the biggest fucking helicopter parents on the planet, I think, and - you know, love totally skews your better judgement sometimes. Obviously putting a three year old on house arrest - not that it _was_ house arrest; that’s a, uh, figure of speech - was an awful idea but the thought of her running off again and getting - god, I don’t know, seriously lost or hurt or mauled by a bear just - scared the  _shit_ out of me. And my sort of - _unwillingness_ to talk to you for the past few days since everything that happened was a more aggressive, way more destructive version of that. Because - look, I know you’re a strong kid. Hell, you’re one of the strongest people I know, so I want to make it clear right off the bat that this isn’t, you know, coming for your independence or capabilities, or anything. It’s just, you know, when I look at the full picture, I can easily see how I’ve, you know, not made things great for you just by being in your life sometimes. Sometimes - god,  _very often_.  I mean, all those messes with Thanos and Titan and Adrian Toomes she even Beck, for god’s sake, is directly a result of me. And that, you know, _also_ scares the shit out of me because I really don’t want to be the person who irreparably fucks you up, or - or gets you,  god _forbi_ _d_ , killed. And this whole thing with Beck is just, I mean, it’s another opening for that to happen, right? I fuck something up, someone gets mad, and takes it out on someone I - _love_ because , you know, I don’t give half a shit about what happens to  _me_ . And I don’t want that for you - I want you to graduate and go to college, or backpack around the world and start your own charity or become a world-famous biochemist or _whatever_ you want. I want you to live till you’re a hundred and five and marry fucking Michelle Jones or - or whoever you want and I really don’t want you to die, Peter. I really don’t want you to get hurt anymore and I really do _not_ want to be the cause of it if you do which, you know, recently I have been. 

“And when I think of all of this I get - really  _scared_ , Peter. And I’m not great with - with _fear_ or whatever, or dealing with things like a sane adult would and I - I just want you to be safe. _That's_ the bottom line. And I don’t necessarily think by my side is the safest place to be at all, so, you know, if I had to be a bit of the biggest dick on the planet and put some space in between us to get you to back off and go home, fine. It’d hurt like fucking hell to do - and it did, trust me - but fine. Except, no, it wasn’t fine at all, it was beyond shitty and obviously gave you a lot of incorrect impressions and put you in a horrible, isolated position and - I fucked things up. Basically. And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like any of this was your fault, or like I was mad or - or disappointed, because I’m not. I’m just - scared. And I don’t know what to do and I don’t want you to get hurt. But regardless of all of that, freezing you out was wrong. And I’m sorry. That’s - yeah, that’s the point I was trying to get to with that - monstrosity of a speech. I’m really sorry, Pete, and I - I know you have every right reserved to be pissed at me for the next twenty five years, but I hope you can at least understand that I never to hurt you or make you feel - anything bad. Never. I just - want to protect you. That’s it.”

Tony exhales hard, suddenly very aware of the fact that he’s been talking for actually ten minutes. _God_. That was probably the least productive apology he’s ever given. _God_ -

His thoughts blissfully cut off and, for a second, he’s not totally sure why. Then he looks down to see a mop of curly hair and a back draped in an oversized shirt and it’s Peter. It’s Peter and he’s hugging him. 

_I don’t deserve this_ _,_ Tony thinks for a second before carefully wrapping his arms around the kid’s back. One of his hands automatically jumps to the back of Peter’s head, running his fingers through the hair there.  _ I definitely do  not deserve this.  _

Peter’s face is pressed into the crook of his neck. He can feel his breath there, short and sharp and a little shaky. His chin pressed down on his shoulder and Tony can feel his hands fisting around the fabric of his shirt. 

“Wanna know something?” the kid says softly into his neck. 

Tony nods, feeling a little dizzy. He’s not sure if he can even name some of the emotions he’s feeling right now, but there’s a lot of them and the build up of them in his chest is starting to make his whole body ache. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“I’m scared too,” Peter mutters. “I’m really scared.”

“Yeah,” Tony repeats, exhaling. He smooths a hand over the back of Peter’s neck. “Yeah.”

“You’re a really good person, Mr. Stark,” Peter says softly, voice a little muffled. “You - all the bad things you mentioned, they weren’t because of you. I - they just happened. Bad things kind of just happen sometimes.”

“I know,” says Tony and he thinks of Yinsen again, of the car battery and the water filling his lungs, of Obadiah’s cold smile, of his smoking reactor, of New York of Pepper falling into the fire, of Siberia and the snow and blood and crackling reactor, of Titan and Thanos and the ash under his nails, of his missing arm and the constant burn of pain wrapping around his body, of Peter’s haunted gaze and shaky voice and broken ribs. “I know.”

“And it’s not your fault. You’ve - done a lot, Mr. Stark. So much good. I promise. If I - if things were bad, I would leave. I would walk away and go back - back to school and Queens and block your number and burn the shit, or - or whatever. I promise.”

“I believe you.”

“Please don’t leave like that again.” Tony can feel Peter’s chin digging into his collar bone. “I - ‘s really stupid and selfish, but - I don’t - can’t do this without you, Mr. Stark.”

“Okay, kid. I promise. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Okay.”

“I really love you, Mr. Stark.”

“Love you too, kiddo.”

“I -“ Tony can feel him swallow against his shoulder. “I’m glad you think of me like - like that. ‘S really nice - really nice. I - think the same thing.”

Tony smiles. “You think of me as your son?”

Peter finally breaks away to push his shoulder, grinning. _“_ _No_ , ew. Like - ugh. You ruined it. Killed the moment. You - moment-killer.”

Tony grins harder, leaning back to raise his eyes at Peter, crossing his arms. “Moment-killer?” he echoes. “That’s the best you can do. Because I heard you talking to Keener back there and, let me say, it sounds you can do a lot more colorful than  _moment-killer.”_

“I blame him entirely,” Peter says solemnly. “He -”

A loud thump on the side of the car cuts the kid off and Tony’s heart full on stops for a solid five seconds. He spins around, gasping as Harley’s grinning face pops into view, armed with two plastic bags with the gas station logo stamped on the side. 

“Speak of the devil,” Tony says, massaging his chest - he might actually be going into cardiac arrest right now, holy shit - as Harley flings himself into the backseat again, plastic crunching. “You are so fucking lucky I don’t have my suit on me or your head would currently be fifty feet away from the rest of your body.”

“You’d never decapitate me,” Harley says matter-of-factly. “You love me too much for that. M&M?”

Tony takes the outstretched bag, rolling his eyes. He can feel Peter giving him a final smile before turning in his seat to glare at Harley. 

“Did you get Reece’s?” he demands. 

“Calm down, loser. Here.”

Peter snatches the orange bag with a grin, tearing it open. 

“I’m hoping you got some actual food too, Keener. Hate to break it to you, but Peter over here has the appetite of Captain America after running six marathons. Reece’s Peanut-butter Cups might not cut it.”

“Relax, old man,” Harley says dramatically. He rustles around in one of the bags for a few seconds before brandishing a long sheaf of paper on Tony’s face. It’s a map. “I found the perfect place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hellooooo...this was so incredibly cathartic to write IDK WHY! also sry this is literally 6k words and a third of that is just tony talking....kind of on brand for him tho I Think. n e ways irondad is BACk and in fighting form!!! god bless!!! fun things are gonna start happening soon and by fun i mean not fun stressful (potentially) things. enjoy!


	15. XV

Harley’s perfect place, as it turns out, is a Denny’s restaurant.

Honestly, Peter isn’t even surprised. Like, remotely so. Even though Peter’s only known him for a grand total of three days, there’s something about showing up to a barely-in-business breakfast diner with a trunk full of some of the most advanced and volatile technology in the country and ordering three sets of pancakes that is so Harley. 

And it’s nice, too. In the way that he’s figuring out a lot of nice things about Harley are - totally unexpected and a little exasperating and oddly comforting. Never before would Peter call sitting in a slightly dusty breakfast bar slowly devouring a stack of blueberry pancakes comforting, but there’s something so refreshingly normal about the event that even he’s able to let go of the tension that’s weaved it’s way into his bones and just enjoy breakfast in the middle of the afternoon for a few hours. And, judging by Harley’s permanent shit-eating grin and the gentle calm that pours off Tony in waves, the two of them are able to do the same thing.

Peter may be relaxing - or whatever aborted version of that he’s able to do now, given the circumstances - but his mind is still shooting around like a loose pinball. His thoughts jump around from the suit still in the trunk outside to Berlin to the train to his leg to Morgan to his conversation with Tony at the gas station.

Things are okay. Tony doesn’t hate him. Tony doesn’t think it’s his fault. Things - at least between them - are okay.

_ Tony thinks of him as his fucking  _ son _.  _

Even as he sits here, a solid hour after the fact with Tony’s knees lightly pressing into his and his shoulder bumping Peter’s every so often, the weight of that hasn’t really sunk in yet. The words float around his head, bumping off every available surface, but they don’t stick anywhere. 

He doesn’t know how to feel about it. Part of him sort of wants to cry. Part of him wants to wrap his arms around Tony and hold onto him for the next six months. Part of him wants to lock himself in a room for even longer, keeping a safe twenty, thirty, five hundred feet between the two of them at all time. 

After all, what happened to his dad? What happened to Ben? What almost happened to Tony less than half a year ago? And Peter’s not bad at math - he knows all about common denominators and how certain equations, certain things can’t happen without them. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who’s the common denominator all those situations.

It’s sort of like Peter’s on a ledge right now. On one side is the refreshing blast of normality breakfast with Harley and Tony and their impromptu road trip have brought. The other is the vast, gaping hole that still hisses about how everything is still wrong and Morgan is still missing and Tony shouldn’t so much as look at him, much less care about him to the extent that the man says he does whenever Peter lets his thoughts stray for longer than a second. 

He’s not sure which side he wants to fall to. Normality is nice, but he can spot the missing pieces from a mile away - May, Ned, MJ, Morgan, and Pepper, to name a few - and that gives everything a glassy, plastic tint, like he’s looking at a carbon copy of what should probably be happening in any other seventeen year old’s summer. He can’t enjoy it fully, not really. And, besides, the gaping hole is terrifying, sure, but at least it keeps him motivated. At least it’s presence keeps him doing everything he can to stop the world around it from sinking in. Fear is a great motivator, or whatever they say.

Okay, Peter’s not actively doing everything he should be, that’s for sure. He’s eating blueberry pancakes and aiming kicks at Harley from under the table while Tony half-heartedly tells them to keep their hands to themselves. That isn’t exactly filling spots one through five hundred on his list of things  _ Peter Needs To Do Right Fucking Now _ like finding Morgan or stopping Beck or getting everyone home safe is, but he is actively thinking about what to do and that’s gotta count for something, right?

Maybe it would if he didn’t keep drawing blanks every way he turned, but he does. He comes up with nothing as he, Harley, and Tony joke around, finishing their food. He comes up with nothing as Tony’s phone buzzes and the man steps away from the table without a single word, some unreadable and hard expression settling over his face like second nature. He comes up with nothing as he and Harley pay the bill and head back to the car, carefully dragging the Iron Man suit, Peter’s web-slingers, and the assorted tools they brought into a backlot behind the restaurant and begin repairs. He comes up with nothing even as Peter gets his web-slingers back in top condition - well, top- _ ish _ \- and they finally reactivate the Iron Man suit. 

They sit there, among the dust and dry grass, sun slicing down at them through the low-hanging clouds, admiring their handiwork. Peter’s web-slingers are already fastened securely to his writs - not having them on makes his chest go inexplicably tight with panic, like every second he’s within activating reach of them is one Beck could suddenly descend from the sky and drop Harley off a fake Eiffel Tower like he did to MJ, or put Tony back in that grave - and the Iron Man suit’s eyes are glowing their usual frosty white, a sign that the suit is fixed - or that’s what he and Harley have reached an unspoken agreement about, at least. 

Peter’s hands are covered with a series of cuts and scrapes from the new-flattened edges of the hole in the suit’s armor. There’s a fine layer of dust and sweat and motor oil covering his whole body, staining his - or Harley’s, really - shirt a weird, grayish-white color. The Harley in question is slumped up against a surrounding fence, breathing a little heavily. There’s streaks of something black on his cheeks and nose, and his mop of curly hair is sticking up on end where he was running his hands through it.

“Weird way we met, huh, Parker?” the boy says, toeing at the shoulder of the red and gold suit in front of them. He looks tired, but satisfied, so Peter does his best to not feel too bad about it.

Instead, he just shrugs a little. “Yeah. I didn’t even know you existed before this.”

Harley nods slowly. “Yeah. I dunno. I think I saw you at the - you know, but -”

“Wasn’t exactly in a talking mood,” Peter finishes. As far as he’s concerned - and he’s mostly managed to shake the voice echoing around his head that sounds terrifyingly like Beck telling him he’s being stupid and gullible all over again - Tony is alive, so the whole four months Peter had to live on earth without him have certainly lost their sting, but he can remember the funeral like it was yesterday, and it still makes his whole chest feel like it’s being crumpled up like a ball of tinfoil. The less time he spends thinking about all that, the better. 

“Yeah,” Harley says again, something imperceptible passing over his face. “That was - not good. Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Harley kicks at the dust some more. He’s running the side of the wrench he was using up and down his index finger, watching the movement like it’s the most fascinating thing on the planet. “Did you -” the boy tries before breaking off, frowning. “Did you think he really - you know?”

So much for not thinking about it, then.

That’s the thing, though. As indescribably awful as it was, as much as he repeated the whole take me instead thing to himself, as many sleepless nights and days where he couldn’t think or feel or say anything around the giant hole Tony’s loss had torn through him, Peter had never really thought that Tony could’ve somehow survived, at least not in this universe. He had  _ heard _ the man die. He had  _ seen _ it, seen the fucking metaphorical light fade from his eyes, slowly felt the hole inside him opening up as every breath Tony sucked in faded more and more. 

To him, Tony  _ had _ died. It had been inconceivable. It had shot a hole right through the center of his universe, flipped the earth upside down and halted it on its axis, but it had happened. He had felt it enough to know that it had.

“Yeah,” he says finally, picking at the flecks of gold and red paint that had somehow worked their way under his nails. “Yeah. I did.”

Harley nods. His face is a careful mask of blankness. It’s like looking at a smaller, younger, blonder version of Tony, really. They have the same, forced expression in their eyes, same tightness around their mouths, same steady clenching and unclenching of their hands. 

Suddenly, Peter wants to hug Harley. He settles for shifting a little and extending his not half-broken leg so that his foot is pressing over the top of Harley’s.

“Me too,” the boy says after a long time. Then smiles, the expression a little sad and a little happy at the same time. “He got us good, huh?”

And Peter lets himself smile a little at that, too. Even as the notion of being tricked again weighs down so heavily in his mind that he can almost feel the atoms inside his brain splitting and everything taking on a greenish hue, he smiles. Because Tony is alive. They have that, at least.

_ Easy to fool people when they’re already fooling themselves, _ says Beck in his ear. Peter ignores it. He presses down on Harley’s foot a little harder, instead, and smiles again as he feels Harley press back up.

A soft crunching behind them shatters the silence that’s fallen, and Peter and Harley turn in unison as Tony walks around from the front side of the restaurant, phone gripped tightly in one hand. 

His eyes are a little red, and something inside Peter wrenches hard.

_ Your fault.  _

Peter ignores that, too. 

“How’s the wifey, old man?” Harley says, his tone miles gentler than Peter’s heard from him in the last few days. The boy tips his head to one side, sunlights glinting off the streaks of oil on his face. 

Tony gives a removed sort of smile that doesn’t even come close to meeting his eyes. “Fine,” he says, voice clipped. “She’s - fine.”

An apology burns on the back of Peter’s tongue, but then Tony turns to him, giving a tense but genuine smile, and the apology crawls down to the back of Peter’s chest and shrivels up.

“We fixed the suit,” Harley says, kicking his free foot in the direction of the suit laying next to them. The reactor glows at the center of the chest plate, the same color as the bleached dust around them, and another real smile crosses Tony’s face. He shoves his phone away and cry he’s down next to them, resting a hand flat against the mask of the suit, tipping his head to the side.

“Wow,” Tony says after a pause. “Good as new.”

“I take cash payments only,” Harley says, grinning as he relaxes against the fence behind him. Tony huffs.

They sit there for a little longer in silence, Harley and Tony’s faces bearing twin expressions of blankness. Harley’s finger taps out a beat against his leg - two, then three, then five, then seven, then eleven, and so on. Prime numbers.

Oddly enough, it reminds Peter of MJ. She taught him this thing - amidst one of his lower moments post-Titan part two huddled in the corner of the boy’s bathroom, walls swimming around him as he fought to drag each breath out of his body. A way of calming down when he needed to.

“Eyes on me, Peter,” she had said that one time. Peter’s back was awkwardly wedged up against the pipe of the stall he was in, and on some fractional scale he had registered his weird this would look to anyone who walked in - Peter Parker curled up on the bathroom floor, eyes red, face white, hands shaking, and breath rasping in the back of his throat as Michelle Jones stared him down, hands on his legs, her knees jammed against his side. “Focus on me. You can feel my hands, right?”

He had nodded. Maybe.

“Good,” she had said, voice totally level, like she talked her stupid useless friends down from panic attacks during the middle of third period as often as she breathed. “We’re gonna count, okay? Prime numbers. You’re a - a nerd, you - can you do that for me? Prime numbers? Ready - okay - two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen...”

And so on. It had worked - it was MJ; the sole functioning part of him at the time hadn’t had a doubt that it would - and the memory resurfacing hits Peter harder than the train in the Netherlands. Between the lake house and the bomb and Morgan going missing and his stupid broken leg and his mild continuing breakdown with Tony, Pete had barely had a second to think about everyone back in Queens who he had so unceremoniously left in the dust. But now, now that things are calmer and they’re not in any imminent danger - well, they are, but, you know - and Peter can finally breathe okay without feeling the heavy pressure of guilt on all sides of his windpipe, he can’t keep MJ or Ned or May out of his head. 

He misses them. He misses them a lot.

“Mr. Stark?” he calls softly, unwilling to shatter the comfortable silence that,s fallen over them again. Tony, who’s settled up against the fence, shoulder pressing against Harley, gives a small hm-ing noise in the back of his thing and turns to him.

“‘Sup, kiddo?”

“Can I - uh, can I use your phone? I haven’t - really talked to May or my friends and I think Karen probably sent them something saying I was okay - she, uh, does that sometimes, I think - but I kinda want to - you know -“

Tony’s smile is small but warm as he pulls his phone out of his pocket and holds it out to Peter, who takes it, ducking his head. “Course, kid. Don’t go too far though, okay?”

Peter ducks his head again and stands. His healing must’ve finally kicked i’m because standing up and stretching out doesn’t hurt that bad this time. He can even put weight on his allegedly broken leg without even the vaguest flicker of pain passing through him.

_ Small victories, _ he thinks, stepping away from Harley and Tony and unlocking the phone, pulling up May’s contact.  _ Always the small ones. _

The phone rings for maybe half a second before the line clicks and Peter has barely enough time to steady himself in the form of leaning against the kind of gross-looking wall of the Denny’s before May’s voice floods his ear.

“Pepper? Is - Pepper? Is this you? Is - hello?”

Peter closes his eyes against the tidal wave of something warm and heavy that slams into him. He can feel the concrete grating against his back as he slowly slides down the wall, head rushing a little. May. May. May is okay.  _ May is okay _ . The world can now keep turning 

_ “Pepper? _ What’s going on, Pep? I - Peter -”

“Hi, May.”

There’s a long pause on the other end, punctured by a shaky inhale on her part. Then, “Peter?  _ Peter? _ Is that - Pete, baby, is that you?”

The relief in her voice is so tangible Peter can almost taste it, and he can feel a grin spreading across his face. “Yeah. Yeah, hi, May. It’s me. ‘S Peter.”

Another pause. “Holy -  _ fucking shit _ , Peter - wh - what - why do you have Tony’s phone? Why -  _ where have you  _ been? What - what’s been -  _ Peter, _ oh my god -”

“It wasn’t me,” Peter says before she can get another word out, before the words Beck or Times Square or mass murderer can leave her mouth. The same feeling of total hopelessness that washed over him the second Beck said London was all him has started to creep back up on him and he needs May to understand that it wasn’t him more than anything else right now. He needs her to believe him.

He has absolutely no idea what he’s going to do if she doesn’t. He doesn’t want to have to figure that out. Every single moment in his life that he can clearly remember has had her in it, and the idea that that could somehow stop because of what happened at Times Square makes his insides feel like they’re being sucked into a black hole.

“It wasn’t me,” he says again, very slowly, like it will make her understand it better. ”The - what Beck said, the video - it wasn’t me. He - the footage, it was edited, I wasn’t - I was turning all the drones off, not - I wouldn’t kill him and he’s not even  _ dead _ but I wouldn’t, it wasn’t me -”

“Peter.” May’s voice has regained its stability during his brief spiel. “I know that. Honey, I  _ know _ that. Of course it wasn’t you.”

Peter presses his head back against the concrete. His throat feels tight. “Wasn’t me,” he mutters again, because he doesn’t really know what else to say around the lump that’s suddenly formed.

May gives a laugh that sounds a little delirious. “God, of  _ course _ it wasn’t. I - never for a second did I think it was.  _ No one _ does.”

The lump doubles in size. “You - Ned and MJ - they -?”

Another laugh. “Yeah, honey. They know you wouldn’t. A lot of people know you wouldn’t - god, you should see Queens right now, there’s all this pro-Spider-man graffiti and little shrine thingies and there have been a few demonstrations and -”

“Ross wants to arrest me,” Peter says, voice still slow. It’ll freak her out, knowing that, and Peter will feel like a piece of shit for doing that for maybe the next twelve days, but he’s kept her in the dark for the past week; it’s only fair that she gets the whole picture. “Well, that was, like, a week ago, so - I don’t know about now. Probably still.”

“Secretary Ross?  _ Thaddeus _ Ross?”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

_ “Asswipe.” _

It’s Peter’s turn to laugh, a little shakily. “Yeah, he is. There’s, um, a few - a couple of things have happened, May. Shit - shit’s kind of crazy.”

“Are you okay?” Her concern floods over him, sharp and warm and it makes his eyes sting a little. “You - we’ve been trying to reach you for a week; your suit sent us you vitals after the video was released, but -”

“Mr. Stark’s alive.”

The longest pause yet. 

“What - the  _ fuck _ ?  _ Tony -?” _

“Is alive. It’s - kind of crazy, he can - he can explain it all to you when he - we get back, but, yeah. He survived. Woke up, like, a week and a half ago. I - I panicked and I went to the lake house and he was there and then Beck - that Mysterio guy - showed up and kind of blew the house up and took Morgan and now I’m somewhere in Tennessee with one of Tony’s - uh, kind of kids and Beck is, like - he’s trying to build a bomb thingy - we think. It’s - really confusing and crazy and I - I really wanna come home, May but - but I can’t. Not yet.”

She’s silent at that, so Peter keeps taking, pressing his fist into one of his legs and staring up at the clouds.

“I - I kind of messed up. A lot. With - with Beck and then Morgan - I was too slow, you know? And- and we just - I just gotta fix this. And I don’t want to come home because the. Beck will come and then - you know, he’ll, like, do something really bad and I just - you know?”

Another long pause. Peter squints up at the sky. He can hear the faint sounds of Tony and Harley talking in the distance. The wind is picking up, and it sends a shiver rippling through his body so hard he jerks off the walls a little. 

“Oh,  _ honey, _ ” May says after a while.

Peter laughs a little. “It sounds worse than it all is, I promise. ‘S gonna be okay.”

“It sounds - god,  _ Peter.” _

“I know.”

“You - you -  _ god _ .”

“I know.”

“I’m going to fucking  _ flay _ Beck alive. Seriously, he - god. That -  _ bastard _ . You - and the train, and Berlin, and now this? God.  _ God _ , I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”

Peter laughs again. “Race you.”

“Are you okay?”

Her question knocks the air out of him a little, but he recovers in time to give a shrug before remembering she can’t see him. So he just tightens his grip on the phone a little and sighs. “‘M all good, May. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“You won’t stop until they are.” 

He sighs again. “I - yeah. Yeah, I just gotta - you know.”

Another chill passes over him, from head to toe, and it makes the back of his neck prickle a little. Yards away, he can still hear the faint sound of Harley and Tony. “I - I’m sorry I left so soon,” Peter says carefully, fiddling with a rock next. “I just panicked, and then - the whole thing with Ross came up, and then the - you know. I just couldn’t come - it wasn’t  _ safe - _ ”

“You’re always safe here,” May says without skipping a beat, and Peter shakes his head again, even though she’s still hundreds of miles away and can’t see him.

“Wasn’t safe for you, I mean,” he mutters, and hears her sigh. Even with the hundreds of miles, he can still feel the heaviness radiating off of her, settling over him like a lead blanket. 

“Oh,  _ honey,” _ is all she says to that. It’s enough. Peter gets what she means.

“I know. It’s okay.”

Another chill. Peter pulls himself out of the safety that radiates around the phone call and all things May for long enough to frown. It’s Tennessee in the middle of summer. Why is he so cold?

“Can - can you tell Ned and MJ I’m okay?” he says, bringing his attention back to his aunt. “And - I’m sorry that I left them too. Especially MJ. Tell them - yeah. Just tell ‘em I’m okay and I’m coming home soon and - yeah.”

Another prickle passes over him, so sharp it sort of feels like someone’s stabbing him with a bunch of needles, and Peter hisses out and claps a hand to the back of his neck before he can stop himself.

Concern spikes through the receiver, almost as sharp as the prickle on the back of his neck. “Peter? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Peter massages the base of his neck, frowning.  _ What the fuck? _ “Yeah,” he says slowly, looking around. Nothing looks out of place. He can still see their car parked out front, a few feet away from the Chevy and pick-up truck that had been there before they had arrived. Wind ripples through the fields just behind the fence surrounding the backlot. A faint cloud of dust passes through the area. Harley’s murmuring voice rises into a laugh over the sound of the breeze, and Peter can see the glint of the Iron Man armor just behind the, still lying in the same place, unmoved. 

Nothing’s there.  _ Nothing’s there. _

“Yeah,” he says again, dropping his hand. “Just -  _ something.” _

“Just  _ something _ something?  _ Peter Tingle _ something?”

The remonstration for calling his heightened senses the  _ Peter Tingle _ dies in the back of his throat before he’s even aware they’re there. Another chill washes over him, and the pricking moves to be back of his throat, and suddenly he’s back in the lake house, Tony’s hand thrown across his chest as they looked around for the invisible threat breaching the security. He had felt this then too, the weird, sick feeling creeping up on him, the pressure of something building inside of him, the chills sweeping over him like he had been plunged into sub-zero temperatures all of a sudden. 

He had felt it, and then Beck had blown the house to pieces.

_ Again. It’s coming  _ again _. _

Peter stands before he can even tell himself to, hand grilling the wall behind him to steady himself. “May, I - gotta go -”

“Peter -”

“I love you. Larb you. I gotta -”

He hangs up before he finishes the sentence - good thing, maybe; he had absolutely no idea what he was going to say next - and is turning the corner and springing back over to where Harley and Tony are in five seconds flat.

“He’s coming,” Peter forces out, digging around the supplies bag and yanking his mask out from underneath the reactors.

Tony stiffens. Harley’s on his feet in an instant. 

“Did you see him?” the boy demands.

Peter shakes his head, flicking on his web-slingers. “No, I - I got this thing - weird senses - I can feel it; he’s here - I can  _ feel _ him -”

A weird hissing noise erupts from somewhere and the sick feeling slams into Peter with full force, his vision fuzzing out at the edges a little. He moves over towards Harley instinctively, semi-shielding the guy from - whatever’s coming, wherever Beck’s about to come from. 

_ No one else is getting taken. No one else _ . Peter’s grip on his mask tightens.  _ No one. _

Alive them, the clouds are starting to take on a greenish hue. The temperature is plummeting and, before Peter can open his mouth, blink, breathe, whatever, something above them cracks, the sky splits open, and something heavy drops onto the ground in front of them.

Peter takes in flashes of green and gold, scales, something heavy and dark and red before he really realizes what’s happening. The man in the center of the lot looks up from where he’s dropped down. There’s no fishbowl helper this time, either. The cuts on his face have healed, and his hair is back to being perfectly groomed and slicked back.

His eyes are dark brown, almost black. Something inside them looks fractured. Peter can see that from miles away.

The man straightens up, a smile curving around his lips, and Peter’s whole body goes cold. He feels Harley stiffen a little beside him.

“Hi, Peter,” says Quentin Beck. His smile doesn’t slip as he raises two gloves hands, palms pointed right at Peter and Harley and Tony and Peter doesn’t even have a half a second this time to think  _ it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not fucking real _ before the man fires.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me vs. not ending every single chapter i write on a cliff hanger......ALSO while it did take me 5 days to get this chapter out in My defense....i forgot how to write! literally rewrote this chapter like 4 times and All of them were so bad jfhksnfksndm....i hope this version is better ...also it is true nothing has happened for like an inordinate amount of time but THINGS ARE gonna happen very soon ok...pls bear w me!!! 
> 
> also yes i am once again ruthlessly promoting for dramatic purposes Pls go read new chapter up now thank you u are all wonderful have good days pleas e <333


	16. XVI

”Hi, Peter.”

Tony’s slapping his now-activated bracelet, calling the suit to him before the words have even exited Beck’s mouth. There’s a hum and a heavy scraping sound and, for one long, horrible second, Tony’s half-combined the repairs somehow failed and the suit isn’t going to come and all he’s going to have to protect the kids from whatever the fuck Beck is planning to do with them will be Harley’s sawed-off shotgun that could still be out front in the trunk of their car for all he knows. But then the scraping stops and Tony has just enough time to brace himself before the suit slams into him, tearing the air out of his lungs and wrapping around his body like a second layer of skin. The armor plates hiss imperceptibly as they merge together, settling over his body in one fluid motion. The weight drags him down a little more than he‘s expecting - his whole body is still aching from the bomb blast, then, because that’s exactly what he needs now - and the screen on the inside of the mask flickers from time to time, the visual feed cutting out, but the suit is on and functioning and works and, most importantly, is able to blow a hole clean through Quentin fucking Beck if Tony wants it to.

But all comforting thoughts of revenge drain out of his head as the man, still grinning like it’s Christmas, raises his hands like he’s about to fire.

_ Oh, no, you don’t. _

Tony knows a few things about Beck’s newly invented persona as Mysterio. One thing, really, but it’s the only one that matters, which is the fact that everyone Beck does as Mysterio is fake. The constructed identity behind the hero - that he’s some valiant defender of Earth from another dimension who’s fled to  _ their _ Earth to somehow save them - is fake.  _ Mysterio _ is fake. He doesn’t shoot lasers or green smoke, he can’t conjure up visions, he can’t do anything that people say he can. He’s a fake.

He’s a fake, yeah, but a fake who still managed to nearly blow the Tower Bridge in half. A fake who’s planning on building a bomb that could tear a hole in the universe. A fake who easily took his daughter and wants to kill Peter Parker and probably  _ will _ if tony gives him so much as the barest hint of a window of opportunity.

A fake, but a dangerous fake.

So it’s instinct, really, that takes over Tony, propelling him forward to stand in between the man and his kids, raising his arm and opening up a shield without him even having to think about it fully. It’s instinct that has him brace himself against the ground, free hand extended out behind him in some vague attempt to protect Peter and Harley from the two torrents of green that explode out of Beck’s palm and slam straight into Tony’s shield.

The impact almost sends him reeling - almost - and Tony doesn’t even allow himself a second to think  _ how the fuck did he just do that _ before he’s straightening up and stepping forward, closer to Beck. The man drops his hands at the same time Tony raises his own, the whirr of the repulsor charging up shattering the silence that’s fallen since Beck’s shot hit.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Tony says, stepping forward a little more. “Were you looking for someone?”

Beck’s really gone full-out for this appearance. Tony had only seen a few fragmented clips of the man that Pepper had waved under his nose post-his waking up and pre-Peter’s arrival to the lake house, and the ones that he did see did absolutely nothing to capture the weird aura of -  _ power _ , almost, that Beck’s suit makes him radiate. It’s like the gladiators of Rome met some extraterrestrials and combined their styles into a suit of armor, scales and gold armor plates meshing with the cape and glowing diamonds studded across it. The faint green tinge the whole back lot has taken on, like the smoke that shot from Beck's hands has somehow wormed its way into the very fabric of the air around them is only giving him more of an otherworldly effect.

He certainly looks like a superhero, which makes Tony want to crack up. Quentin Beck - a  _ superhero _ . What a fucking  _ world _ they are living in if people can look at the cracked-up, egomaniacal, borderline homicidal - and that was only when Tony knew him back in 2016 - man that is Quentin Beck and paint him as a  _ hero _ . It beyond baffles Tony that people can trust and  _ are _ trusting him -  _ Beck _ \- over Peter Parker - Queens’ most ardent defender, the literal  _ child _ who has thrown himself under the metaphorical bus time and time and  _ time _ again because he thought it might give even a handful of people a chance at survival, or even just a better version of the life they already had. The fact that people are throwing everything Peter’s done for New York and the world and the entire fucking universe, really, out the window in the face of some jumped-up drama school drop-out with a fishbowl for a helmet makes Tony so beyond angry he has to actively restrain himself from firing a hole right through the man’s smirking face.

_ (But, then again, people believed  _ Tony  _ was a hero - and maybe still do - when all he’s done is managed to fuck the galaxy up and then sort of clean it up afterward, so maybe he shouldn’t be all that surprised). _

Beck smirks a little, tipping his head to the side. “Oh, hi, Tony. Good to see you.”

Tony resists the urge to spit at him. “You too, Quentin. Long time no see, hm?“

“Not long enough.” The smirk drops from Beck’s face in an instant.

“Oh, trust me,” Tony all but spits, stepping even further forward. A few more motions and the two of them will be nose-to-nose. “You have  _ no _ idea how mutual that feeling is.”

“I’ll give you an out, Tony,” Beck says, folding his hands in front of him, calm expression back on his face. “I want the reactors. And Peter. Give me them, and I’ll give you back your stupid fucking kid, alright?”

Tony opens his mouth. Blinks once.

Then closes it, jaw shutting with a snap.

He could have Morgan back. He could get Morgan back. He could bring Morgan back safe and sound and relatively unharmed and get her somewhere far away from Beck and his bomb and whatever the man is planning to do. Tony can rebuild the lake house and make sure Pepper heals properly and then they can go home, back to the hole in the framework of the universe Tony has carved out for them. Morgan can come home and the universe can turn right side up again. They can forget this has all happened.

But it has happened. It  _ is _ happening. It’s happening and, even though he’s since relinquished his grip on Peter, he can feel the tension radiating off the kid; he can feel him holding his breath, waiting for Tony’s affirmation of the deal that must seem inevitable on his end of things. And Tony still has dreams where Peter’s face hollows out before him, crumbles away into nothing, the light that normally burns bright in his eyes slowly dimming as he disappears into the wind and Tony knows, with as much certainty as he knows anything, that he cannot and  _ will not _ let Peter go again.

There’s a way out. He can have both. He can get both Peter and Morgan and Harley home safe. He can do it all and he will do it and he’s sure as  _ hell _ not going to strike a deal up with Quentin fucking Beck.

So Tony raps the side of his face plate, his helmet retracting in a flash. He puts on what he hopes is a neutral expression and extends a hand out for Beck to shake it, a gesture of what the man will undeniably think of as a silent agreement.

Beck pauses, staring down at Tony’s outstretched hand like he’s never seen anything like it. When he looks back up, he’s grinning, eyes wide.

_ Gullible _ , Tony thinks with a barely-contained smirk as Beck grabs Tony’s hand and shakes it, muttering, “That’s cold,” as he does so.

Allowing his face to break into a grin of his own, Tony lets the power run through the open repulsor in his hand, sending a long, slow jolt of energy through Beck. He can’t help but smile wider as the man grunts with the force of it, own grip tightening on Tony’s as the shock slams into him.

Something smells like it’s smoking and it’s not coming from Harley or Peter, so Tony doesn’t remotely care. He just grins wider and leans in to Beck’s ear.

“Don’t make me barter with my kids ever again,” he says slowly, letting another blast of energy flow from his hand to Beck’s. “Ever. I don’t play for outs. I’m going to wipe the  _ floor _ of this back lot with your ass and find my kid. And then I’m going home. No bomb, no Peter, no  _ heroism _ for you, Quentin. Also -” Tony squeezes Beck’s gloved hand harder, watching calmly as the man grunts again, knees sagging a little. His hair is starting to stick up a little and Tony can almost taste the electricity running through the air. “Fuck you.”

And then he drops Beck’s hand, steps back, and kicks the man in the chest in one swift movement, sending him sprawling with a grunt.

“Okay!” Tony says, turning around. Harley’s still standing frozen, Peter half-shielding him with his shoulder. The kid’s wearing his mask now, and the white eyes are blown open wide with an expression of almost comical shock. “We have about six seconds before he gets up. Let’s get -”

_ “Stark!” _

_ “Fuck,” _ Tony hisses under his breath, and then grabs Peter and Harley each by a shoulder, turning them to face him. He can hear something shifting behind him as Beck undoubtedly tries to stagger to his feet. Fuck. He really should've just gone for stunning the guy and knocking him unconscious. Or just blowing him to pieces. Tasering him twice was obviously not going to do anything - fuck. 

He squeezes Harley and Peter’s shoulders, mostly to remind himself that they’re here and they’re still safe and he has his own window of opportunity to make this the best possible outcome. He has his opportunity to not repeat with Morgan over again. They’re here and alive and he will  _ not _ repeat what happened with Morgan. He can’t.

“Listen to me,” Tony says aloud, staring the two of them dead in the eye. “Grab the reactors. Get to the car and drive. Floor it. Don’t go back to Harley’s house. Go somewhere - anywhere - but here, and then call Happy. He’ll come and pick you up and take you two back to New York. Okay?”

“Not leaving -” Peter tries at the same time as Harley gives Tony an offended look, and he just squeezes their shoulders a little harder.

“Wrong answer. Go.”

“No -”

“Keener, shut up.  _ Go.” _

There’s another bang that rips the sky open and suddenly Tony’s lungs are filling with the same green fog as what came out of Beck’s hands earlier. He coughs, something in the back of his throat burning, and pulls himself to his feet - had he fallen over? - blindly reaching his hands out for someone, anyone to grab onto. 

His fingers brush the fabric of someone’s jacket - warm and rough and worn - and he tugs it closer, blinking his eyes clear of the fog to see Harley’s dazed expression swim into views. There’s a cut along the side of his temple and jagged pieces of wire and metal strewn around him and it takes Tony a second to realize Beck somehow managed to blow up the fence they had been standing in front of. 

“Get to the car,” Tony says around a cough, and Harley’s expression sharpens into one of irritation. 

“But Peter -”

Tony spins on his heel before Harley can even finish and, yep, sure enough, Peter’s somehow managed to get back on his feet in double the time it took Tony and go after Beck. He watches as Peter shoots through the air, the faint outline of a web falling to the ground behind him, as Beck stands on the ground, hands raised above him. Peter whips around mid-leap suddenly, firing a web straight at Beck’s face, and pulls down, sending the man sprawling against the ground. The boy hits the dust, jumping back to his feet, as Beck staggers upwards, too. They’re a good twenty feet away from where Tony and Harley are, but it doesn’t take an up close view to see that the expression on Beck’s face is nothing short of murderous. 

“Stay here,” Tony snaps, dropping the collar of Harley’s jacket and activating his thrusters. 

“I’m not gonna -”

But Tony’s already gone, shooting off into the air. 

“Friday?” he mutters, stopping just a few feet above Beck. 

His view screen crackles a little, the blue-tinged view flickering a little. “Yes, boss?”

“Analyze his fight pattern. And whatever he’s firing. We need everything we can get on him.”

“Yes, boss.”

Then Tony dives, letting his weight go dead as he slams into Beck, knocking them both to the floor. Dust fills Tony’s view as Beck thrashes underneath him, heavy leather gloves scrabbling at the chinks in Tony’s armor like he wants to rip it apart. Tony shifts, driving his knees into Beck’s stomach and reaches out to grab the man’s hands, holding them back away from the armor. 

“Uh uh. No funny business,” he spits. 

Beck snarls audibly, jerking underneath him. “You - have no idea - what you’re fucking with, Stark -”

And then he wrenches his hands free and claps them down on Tony’s shoulder. There’s a faint pause where nothing happens and Tony’s almost able to think that nothing is going to happen, that Beck’s just trying to get a better grip on him to throw him off, but then the man’s whole body seems to flow green for a second and a jolt of electricity so heavy that it feels like the breath has been slammed out of his lungs flows into Tony, sending him flying backwards. 

“System overload, boss,” Friday quips in his ear as Tony rolls away from his second faceful of dust of the afternoon. 

“Yeah,” Tony mutters, hauling himself to his feet. “I got that. What - what is this thing gonna do? What stuff is online?”

“Most of the suit’s major functions are still offline, boss,” Friday informs him calmly and Tony bites back a snarl of irritation.  _ Fucking perfect. _ “Currently, you have access to the flight thrusters and palm and gauntlet repulsors, but that is it. All other functions are inoperable, due to the suit’s damaged circuitry.”

“Amazing,” he says, tilting his palms downwards and shooting up into the sky.

The whole lot has been submerged in the weird green fog that had started pouring in with Beck’s arrival, making the ground almost impossible to see clearly. Tony can just catch glimpses of movement - a flash of red and black shooting through a fog bank, scrambling on the edges of the space that must be Harley doing god-knows-what. There’s a glint of green and gold right where Peter just was and Tony sticks a hand out, firing on instinct. A muffled grunt and some heavy scraping meets his ears and Tony grins in satisfaction as Beck’s figure disappears from sight.

“What’s with this fog stuff, Fri?” he mutters, diving down and swooping just above the clouds. “Is it toxic?”

“No toxicity detected,” Friday says after a pause, a brief flash of numbers and code running along the edge of Tony’s screen. “I am unable to detect what substance it is. It appears to be emanating from Beck’s suit - his gloves in particular.”

“Is -” Tony cuts off as something hot and bright streaks past his shoulder, a plume of smoke erupting in the sky behind him. He spins in the air and aims his own blast back towards the ground in response, a spray of dirt and dust flying into the air as he fires where Beck just was. “Jesus. Is this real? Pete mentioned the guy was doing illusions -”

Another shot from Beck cuts off all his thoughts as it slams right into his chest, knocking him clean out of the sky. Tony barely even feels the impact, which is good and also not so because it suddenly feels like every single nerve ending in his body has been lit on fire and is slowly burning up. He can feel excess electricity courting through the wiring of the suit, transferring into his own body easily and, for a second, the dust and bright sun of the backlot falls away as Titan rematerializes around him, the same sort of pounding feeling echoing around his body as he held the gauntlet up and stared Thanos dead in the eye. 

Then the memory shatters as something heavy crashes down in front of Tony, sending him flying. A grunt is ripped out of his lips as he crashes into what feels like a ledge, something knocking off the side of his armor. There’s another blast that narrowly misses the left side of his face and, as he’s uncurling himself, Beck appears from nowhere, lunging at him, palms facing outward. 

Still reeling, Tony swings his legs around, knocking Beck off his path. The man goes flying down into tony, elbows colliding sharply with his shins and Tony kicks him back again before standing up and launching himself on top of the man. 

_“This_ is for fucking with my kids,” Tony hisses in his ear before swinging his arm around, armored fist catching the side of Beck’s cheek. The man hisses out, eyes blazing, and lunches for Tony again, face contorting into a smile. 

Something cracks, suddenly, and Beck jerks back, out of reach of Tony’s grip. He glances around, eyes narrowing, before standing up and running back, vanishing into the fog again. Tony hails himself to his feet and whirls around, looking for the source of the noise. 

There it is. Five foot seven, standing on the incline right before the dip in the lot ground, shotgun half-hanging off his shoulder, eyes blown wide. 

“Did you just fire that?” Tony calls. 

Something in the distance explodes and both he and Harley swing around to the source of the noise, assorted weaponry raised. Something behind the steady wall of fog flashes a little. 

“Yeah!” Harley yells, raising the gun again. 

“What - who were you aiming for, me or him?”

Another crack erupts from the gun, Harley jerking back with the force of it. 

“Him!”

Another, much louder bang echoes around the lot and the fog explodes open as Peter leaps through it, Beck closing in on his heels. 

“Incoming!” the kid yelps and then drops out of the sky, rolling across the floor, and leaping back up to his feet, firing helplessly as the figure of Beck dive bombs down on him. 

Tony raises an arm, firing from his wrist gauntlet. The shot knocks the man out of the air, green fog exploding outwards as he dips towards the ground. 

“Okay, Parker, pull him in again,” Tony calls, raising his hands again as Beck steadies. “I’m gonna take him out and then we’re going to -  _ kid, watch out!” _

Peter narrowly avoids another shot from Beck. It comes so close Tony can see the force of it rippling the kid’s shirt, electricity or  _ whatever’s _ pulsing off of it leaving a weird scorch mark on the side. Peter staggers back, hands raised, eyes blown wide.

“Pull him in?” he calls as another misfired shot sends a wave of green washing over them. Tony coughs as some of it trickles through the suits filtration system. Should his head be spinning that much? It definitely shouldn't be spinning that much.

“New plan!” Tony yells over the echoes of the shot. “You get back and find - fuck -” He ducks as something explodes behind him, a wash of dirt slamming into the back of his head, and fires a shot in return that sends Beck swooping dangerously close to them as he drops out of the air a little. “Find Harley and  _ leave!” _

“He wants  _ me _ , Mr. Stark -”

“I don’t care! Go!”

Another blast lands at their feet, the ground cracking open with the force of it. Both Tony and Peter go flying, Tony desperately trying to maneuver his course so that he lands a little closer to the teenager. Instead, he’s caught off guard by another shot that sends his shoulder jamming into the ground, a sharp slice of pain shooting from the base of his neck down to his elbow.

“Peter -” he tries and then coughs, dust clogging up his filtration system. Friday is saying something sharp and urgent in his ear that he can’t hear over the sudden ringing in his head and Tony turns, whole right arm screaming in pain, trying to catch a glimpse of red and black through the fog. Instead hejus finds empty space next to him and that, coupled with the distant yelling and more blasts he can suddenly hear, is enough to force Tony to his feet, thrusters kicking up again as he shoots back into the air and straight for the floating figure of Beck.

They collide in the sky and topple awkwardly to the ground, the sudden jolt of the impact sending another burn of pain through Tony’s arm so strong his vision starts to white-out at the edges a little. He hisses, wrapping an arm around what he hopes is Beck’s neck and flies a few feet up again before killing the power, sending them slamming back into the ground. This time he makes sure Beck lands first, and a faint, sickening yet satisfying  _ crunch _ meets his ears. 

The man wrestles under his weight, arms flailing, slamming uselessly into the sides of the armor. Tony just wings his elbow around, catching Beck on the side of the ribs, and presses his weight down harder, honing his attention down on the man below him.

“Get - off -”

“Make me,” Tony spits, tightening his headlock. His right arm is a dead weight now, basically, and something heavy in the pit of Tony’s stomach tells him his prosthetic was probably wrenched out to some extent with the force of the fall, so he’s stuck doing this one-handed. Fine. Fine. This is nothing but a scrawny lunatic with smoke machines taped to his hands. This is fine.

Beck wrenches again, hands wrapping around Tony’s arm, and sends them flying, Tony landing on his back with a dull wave of pain shooting through him. He swings his legs out before Beck has time to recover and sends the man falling to the ground, dust erupting around him as he hits it with a grunt. Tony scrambles back to his feet and activates the thrusters again, giving him a nice bit of air before dropping back down to knock a sold left-hook against Beck’s jaw. The man goes flying again, blood already darkening the corner of his lip, but not before his grip finds Tony’s hand and tugs him down with him.

They hit the ground for the billionth time, the impact knocking the breath right out of Tony and maybe it’s that, maybe it’s the pain in his arm that’s spread to the whole right side of his body and racked up to a solid eleven for good measure, maybe it’s the weird burning in the back of his throat that breathing in the fog is giving him, maybe it’s the fact that - aside from Beck - he hasn’t seen Haarley or Peter and his brain won’t stop with the undercutting thought of  _ they’re dead, they’re dead, they’re dead _ . Who knows what it is, but, before Tony has time to recover, Beck’s on him, knees driving into his stomach, pressing the jagged breaks of the half-fixed armor down onto his chest, hands on the sides of his head.

His eyes are blown wide, blood dripping into the corner of one of them, teeth bared in something between a smile and a grimace of pain. Parts of his armor have been blown off, revealing what looks like a basic white t-shirt stained with dust underneath, and his cape has all been totally ripped off. There’s the faint traces of spiderwebs clinging to his arms and Tony can feel him panting as he presses down on the sides of his face, shoving his head back into the ground.

He looks insane. He looks the exact type of insane Tony remembers when the man confronted him about BARF, excitedly waving his sketches and memos and notes under his nose, demanding that Tony give him more autonomy so that he could make BARF into  _ something actually worthwhile. _

“Just for the record,” Beck mutters, the grooves on the fabric of his gloves digging into Tony’s cheeks as he holds him down. “I’m still not sorry about any of this.”

And then something - something calming and terrifying and totally inexplicable - happens. A weird wash of heaviness passes over Tony and he’s sort of aware of the figure of Beck and the smoke and dirt and ache in his arm and feeling of the gloves on his face disappearing, but not aware enough to wrench himself out of whatever’s happening to him. He can feel himself falling, sliding away, like a hole has opened up underneath him and sent him spiraling down to the center of the earth. Gravity feels ten times heavier, like hands reaching out to see how fast they can make him collide with the ground and Tony just keeps falling and falling and falling, unable to blink or move or breathe or stop.

Then he does. He feels it like it’s real - and maybe it is; Tony can’t tell at this point - the impact knocking every molecule of breath from his body as his face presses into the dust. He doesn’t try to move - it feels like if he does, every bone in his body is going to shatter to pieces - just lays there, gasping, nose pressing into the ground, dust filling his eyes.

The dust. The lot. The - Beck.  _ Beck _ .

_ “Fuck!”  _ Tony spits, dragging himself to his feet. The right side of his face feels like it’s just been blowtorched and his whole arm is totally immoile, swinging uselessly at his side as he gets to his feet, looking around.

“Peter?” he calls, moving forward. “Harley? Friday - where -?”

“Mr. Keener is by the edge of the lot again, boss.” her voice crackles in between words, audio dipping in and out of clarity, but the horrifyingly realistic panic that’s shot through her words is impossible to miss. “I believe he is unconscious -”

_ No, no, no, no - _

“- and Mr. Parker is twenty feet ahead of you. Also seemingly unconscious. Beck is -”

But Tony doesn’t hear the rest. His brain stops somewhere in between Peter and unconscious and Beck and that’s all he can process. 

Tony takes off running - limping, really - in the direction of where Peter is. Figures start to come into view, first the hige, looming one of Beck, head bowed a little as he crouches down over something and then the smaller, curled up one of Peter lying among the rubble and overturned dirt and Tony cannot lose him again; he will not lose him again.

He can’t.  _ He can’t. _

“Friday,” Tony snaps around something hot and heavy that’s started to wind around his lungs and squeeze them. “Where’s Rhodey?”

“The Compound, boss -”

“Initiate Transfer Protocol. Target Harley Keener. I want this thing to take him back to New York and not stop until he’s with Rhodey. Shut down every single override protocol. I don’t care what the kid says or does, he’s getting back there. Understand?”

“Mr. Parker -”

For a second, Tony flounders. There’s no point in doing so, obviously - tony had one suit, one free ride home. The wiring is already shot enough so that Tony’s worrying that the thing is going to break down over the middle of Massachusetts and send Harley falling somewhere into the Atlantic ocean; adding on extra weight will mean they probably won’t even get out of the state.

But he doesn’t want to choose. He doesn’t want to have to choose, but he does, so he chooses. 

And he chooses Harley. Because there are several things tony can’t do, and leaving Peter alone, unprotected, at the mercy of Beck is not one of them. Beck isn’t looking for Harley. 

He’s looking for the boy lying on the ground in front of him, and Tony has lost him once already. He’s not going to make a habit of it. 

“I’ll deal with him,” he says after a pause, still moving forward. “Transfer.”

And, just like that, the comforting weight of the suit pressing against him from all slides disappears, slowly falling off of him like discarded layers of clothing. He stumbles as the final pieces of armor come free from his legs and connect with the now-compressed metal box that is the rest of the armor floating a couple feet off the ground. 

Then it disappears, shooting off into the distance behind him, shooting off to wherever Harley is, and Tony doesn’t wait to see if it makes it. It will. It  _ has _ to.

Instead, now unencumbered by the armor, Tony takes off, running as fast as he can right towards Beck. Before he can think straight, before he vice in the back of his head can wrap around his brain like a voice until all he can think is  _ this isn’t going to work; you’re going to fail _ , Tony hits the ground with both feet and launches himself into the air, colliding into Beck’s head with his arms and legs flailing.

They skid across the dust, Tony scrambling up first to wrap his arm around Beck’s neck again, putting him back in his earlier headlock. The man thrashes hard, armor plates jamming into Tony’s stomach and legs, but every time Tony can feel his grip starting to weaken, he fixes the image of Morgan’s screwed-up, terrified face right before the bomb dropped in his mind and just pulls tighter. 

“This isn’t going to - work - you -  _ fuck _ -” Beck rasps, jerking his head back, hands trying to fit in the space in between Tony’s ark and his neck. 

“Oh, yeah?” Tony grows, pulling tighter. “Try me.”

Beck’s arm flails back again and, for a second, Tony thinks it’s just some unconscious movement, some vague struggles as the man’s face goes redder and redder and his eyes slowly start to close. But he feels the hard leather-like material of the man’s gloves graze his jaw and then, before he can think, before he can react, a palm presses flat against his temple just like before, and Tony’s grip involuntarily slackens as the hole underneath him opens and he’s sent tumbling down into nothingness again. 

He tries to move, tries to call out, jerk himself away from the vision, grab onto Peter,  _ whatever _ he can do, really, but he’s falling too hard and, before another thought can cross his mind, his vision goes red, then white, then black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY....Please do not kill me for this chapter <3 also yes the cliffhangers continue....Whoops! ALSO i CANNOT write fight scenes for the life of me still i’m sorry also beck is such a bad person in this fic literally writing him makes me  
> so angry he SUCKS ok...that’s all ty for reading Please don’t kill me again thank u<33


	17. XVII

Tony’s not sure where he is when he wakes up.

Everything starts coming to him in bits and pieces, scraps of images and objects and memories flowing through him in a disjointed stream.

The first thing he notices - this is before he even manages to crack his eyes open - is how _cold_ the room is. 

Maybe it’s because he’s been wandering around Tennessee in the middle of July for the past 72 hours and, come on, it’s Tennessee in the middle of July - the place is like a fucking sauna smack dab in the middle of Death Valley at the best of times - and he’s grown more than a little accustomed to temperatures in the 80s, but the first thing that strikes him about the room - maybe even the thing that wakes him up in the first place - is how bone-chillingly _cold_ the place is. Tony’s pretty sure that, if he could open his eyes - if he wanted to open his eyes - his breath would be billowing out in clouds in front of him and there would be icicles hanging from his chin, or something.

The second thing Tony notices is the smell of the place. It’s an odd combination of copper, salt, and something a little like oranges and half-drags Tony back somewhere he can’t fully pinpoint but knows enough to know that he doesn’t wast to go back there.

He still hasn’t opened his eyes. It was one of the many things Howard drilled into teenage Tony’s head during their endless kidnapping training sessions - don’t let your captors know you’re awake until you absolutely have to. Chances are - if they’re stupid enough - they might let something important slip - a way to escape, vital information you can use against them in any following negotiations or bargains or court trials - and your life will get a hell of a lot easier.

Of course, if Tony’s memory serves him correctly - and, despite all his silent pleas for the contrary, it definitely does - Beck is the unnamed kidnapper in this situation and than man is many things, as Tony’s memory also offers up, but an idiot is not one of them.

Amazing. It takes all of Tony’s self control not to burst out into hysterical laughter at that. This cannot - literally cannot get any more amazing than it is already. Tony’s in some freezing ass room with what tastes like a nice combination of blood and tears in his mouth - he’s not sure what’s worse: the fact that he was, at some point, crying, or the fact that he can;t even remember why now - zip-tied to a chair that’s definitely bolted to the floor. He has no backup, no suit, no way of getting his arm to stop hurting so fucking much and, worst of all, Peter isn’t here.

He’s lost the kid. He’s lost his kid. Scratch that, he’s lost his _kids_ . _Kids_ as in plural, _kids_ as in multiple kids, because Morgan is still missing, too, and for all he knows, she’s cooped up somewhere in this freezing hellhole, half-dead or dying or - fuck. _Fuck_ . Morgan is gone and Peter is gone now, too, and he could be dead or on his way there or hurt or bleeding out or drugged or missing some limbs or being tortured or fed more fucking visions and Tony wouldn’t be able to do _shit_ about it. Morgan is gone and Peter is gone and Harley is god-knows where - maybe sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, if Tony’s luck with keeping people safe is keeping its typical course - and Tony cannot fucking do _anything_ about it.

He grits his teeth against a scream he can feel building in the base of his chest. The imperceptible jaw clench this motion will probably cause is going to be enough to let Beck - or whichever one of the man’s cronies he’s been dumped with - know that he’s awake, and it’s not like things could get any worse at this point - even dying might be an improvement for him - so Tony heaves a sigh and blinks open his eyes slowly. 

The room is dimly lit, shadows from the overhanging lights pooling across the room. The walls are bare and a dull beige color that coincides perfectly with the stone floor and dark table. He’s seated on one side of the metal table in question that’s been welded to the floor, the top bare except for a pitcher of water and a small metal cup on the other side, set out like someone’s about to walk in and have a seat opposite from Tony. There’s a stack of papers next to the water, too, narrow, cramped writing scrawled across them, too small for Tony to read. Opposite to him is a big glass wall surrounded by a couple of welded-in metal beams. The glass is that one-way mirror stuff - presumably - and Tony can see his own reflection staring back out at him. He looks - bad. His hair has been mussed up, sticking up at some parts and flattened completely down at others. There’s half-dried blood around his nose, lips, and temples, and one side of his face looks like it’s just starting to heal from a black eye.

Tony swallows, and the reflection swallows back, jaw going tight with the motion. The reflection’s eyes are wide and oddly blank, a carefully constructed wall falling down in front of them that Tony recognizes only too well. It is him, after all, even if the person in the mirror looks like someone he used to know twenty years ago, not his own face and body.

He swallows again. The back of his throat burns. His head is pounding, and his windpipe feels like it’s closing up a fraction more with every breath he takes. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do.

He has to fucking get out of here. _Now_.

He has to, but he can’t, because from the feeling of it, he’s been zip-tied to the chair. The freezing metal of the back of the seat presses into his arms as they snake behind him, sharp plastic digging into his wrists, keeping them pinned there. 

He tugs his arms down and hisses as a buzz of pain shoots up his hands and arms. Another attempt has him screwing up his face, furiously trying to keep his jaw clamped shut as the zip-ties bite into his wrists more with every movement. A third attempt has something warm and wet slowly start to drip down his fingers and onto the ground below. 

“Fuck,” Tony spits, relaxing against the chair. His elbow is throbbing, the feeling sending hot waves of pain coursing up his arm and crashing into one another at the center of his chest. There’s no way he’s getting out of these fucking zip-ties anytime soon - not unless he wants his writs to come off first - and chair is welded to the floor, so that crosses off the possibility of somehow tipping the thing over and smashing himself free. The door, by the looks of it, is heavy and metal and probably bolted shut in seven different places and god only knows how many people are looking at him from the other side of the one-way mirror, assorted weaponry raised, waiting for him to try and make a move. He’s stuck and he doesn’t know how to get out and everything about this room feels and smells so fucking familiar and Peter is gone and Morgan is gone and he wasn’t able to stop _any of it_.

He thrashes against the restraints again, spitting in pain as another burning feeling crawls up his arms. He has to get out, he has to get out, he has to find his kids and get them fucking out of here and -

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Tony flinches back, stilling his movements as a disembodied voice sounds around the room, bouncing against the compact walls. 

“What the hell?” he hisses, staring his reflection dead in the eyes. He knows that voice. “Beck?”

“Oh, well done. You catch on quick.” He can hear the sneer in Beck’s voice, practically see it dripping down the walls from whatever hidden speaker its emanating from. “And here I was thinking we were going to have to play 20 question for you to work it out.”

“Where’s my kid?” Tony mutters, gaze roaming the room like Morgan or Peter will pop out from inside one of the walls, or something. “What the _fuck_ have you done with my kids?”

“Parker is - elsewhere. The five year old brat is in a facility back in New York, if you must know.” The voice of Beck sucks in a breath though his teeth, long and slow,before carrying on. He almost sounds apologetic, if it weren’t for the maniacal undercurrent or glee Tony can hear running through his voice. “Alive, though not exactly having the _best_ of times currently. My fault, _mea_ _culpa_ , all that. Well, actually, it’s kind of yours, but that’s okay.”

“You lay a fucking finger on them -” Tony growls, breaking off to cough, throat burning. “And I’ll flay you alive.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll be doing much of that,” Beck’s voice chirps, light tone sending a shiver running through Tony that suddenly has nothing to do with the cold. “See, if there’s anything your bastard kid taught me in London, it was that people are sometimes, you know, smart. Intuitive. Shocking, I know. And, sure, not everyone has a fucking _sixth sense_ , or whatever the little creep has that helped him take out the drones, but it pays to be cautious, don’t you think? Treat everyone like they do, so to speak.”

Drones - what had Peter been saying about the drones? They were responsible for the illusions, right? The elemental attacks, the stuff Peter had seen in Berlin - all of it. That’s how Beck does it - drones. 

“What are you going to do?” Tony says slowly, letting his eyes rove around the room. Another thing about it is it’s small. The table is maybe five, six feet long and there’s only about a six inch gap between its edges and the wall. It can’t be more than 8 feet by 6 feet, at the least. That’s barely enough room to fit Steve fucking Rogers, much less an army of hefty-sized drones. If what Peter said was correct about that being the way Beck controlled the illusions - and it probably was - than the man has to have found a new way to do it.

Either that, or he’s just planning on killing Tony outright. That might be preferable, honestly. 

“That remains to be seen,” Beck’s voice says calmly. “But London _did_ get me thinking. Drones, they’re - well, cumbersome. Not that effective, honestly. They do have their uses, though, but additions and subtractions _had_ to be made. So, with some minor tweaking, I’ve - ah, _improved_ the system.”

Tony grits his teeth. “How? What the fuck did you do?”

“Don’t you worry about that. I’d say that’s maybe the sixth of your worries right now. Bigger fish to fry, Tony. Oh, and another thing - _thank you_ for making your systems so easy to link together, by the way. Thank you - _really_ , I mean it. You know, if it weren’t for the fact that you made crossing the bridge between the databases of EDITH and - what’s it called? Wednesday?”

 _Fuck. Oh, fuck._ _“Her_ name is Friday.”

“Mhm. Well, whatever. Point is, if you hadn’t done that, this would be a hell of a lot easier on you. So, if you ever get the chance to think back on this, just remember - only have yourself to blame!”

Tony jerks forward again, ignoring the zip-ties, and opens his mouth to say something, retaliate, force the man to explain the drones or what he’s about to do - even if Tony’s pretty sure he already knows - _anything_ , but before he can get another word in edgewise, the whole room goes black and Tony’s sent shooting down through the ground again.

The fall lasts less time than it did in the backlot. He hits the ground on his back, a dull wave of pain washing over him, and coughs, rolling onto his side. Wincing, Tony sits up, and feels his heart go dead in the middle of his chest.

“See, here’s the thing, Tony,” says a voice - Beck’s - that he barely registers over the suddenly deafening ringing in his ears started by what he’s just caught sight of. “Friday has a _lot_ of stuff about you stored on it’s files. A lot of information regarding all the - _less than pleasant_ things you’ve experienced. Most of this is conjecture, but - still!”

Tony doesn’t respond. His heartbeat is pounding around his head and suddenly everything is starting to make sense - the cold and the permanent smell of saltwater and the walls of rock jutting out at him because there, not ten feet in front of him, lays Ho Yinsen. Ho Yinsen is in front of them and Tony’s back in Afghanistan, back in the cave, and Yinsen is laying there, spread-eagled, _right in fucking front of him_

Tony can’t move. He’s trying - _trying_ to sprint over to the man, help him up, get them out of this fucking cave and back to the man’s family like they were supposed to fucking do, but it’s like his feet have been superglued to the ground. All Tony can do is stand there, breath rasping in the back of his throat, eyes starting to sting with the salk water as his vision tunnels until all he can see is Yinsen’s pale, blank face tipped back, resting against the walls. His glasses are sliding down the bridge of his nose and there’s a prominent circle of red on his temple - a gunshot wound. There’s blood all over the sandbags he’s laying on.

Tony looks down at his hands and flinches back, throat tightening. 

They’re covered in blood. 

He looks up again and the walls of the cave have fallen away, the space narrowing and shrinking until Tony feels like he can;t so much as take a breath without getting crushed and all he can see is the sandbags and Yinsen and the blood on his hands.

“Yinsen?” he hears himself say. His head is ringing, the sound almost drowning out his own words. He can’t move. “Yinsen? Is - you gotta get up, you - Yinsen, can you hear me? You - we gotta go home, we - are you -?”

Silence. Silence and the ringing in Tony’s head and the sound of his own breath being dragged up through the shards of glass that suddenly feel like are lining his throat.

Something at the corner of his vision shifts and Tony wrenches his gaze away from the dead man, chest heaving, as the calm, impassive figure of Quentin Beck walks up to him, hands folded behind his back. He’s dressed in all black, hair perfectly groomed back, face devoid of all his earlier injuries from the back lot. His eyes glint a little in the low light, two twin circles of black on the center of his face, and a careful smile curls across his face as he stops next to Tony.

“I believe this is yours,” Beck says, reaching one hand around to offer something to Tony.

It’s a gun. The barrel is still smoking. He can’t do anything but at it in horror, blinking. 

“I - I didn’t -” Tony shakes his head, throat closing. “I tried - no, I - it wasn’t me - I didn’t -”

He looks back to Yinsen. The man’s shifted up into a sitting position and, even though his body is still riddled with holes, even though the sandbags behind him are more red than beige, even though Tony knows the man is dead because he died, because he died trying to fucking _save_ Tony’s life, because Yinsen’s plan had always been to die for Tony Stark, the man’s expression is clear all of a sudden, like he’s alive again. It’s sad, almost. Regretful, maybe, and just the vague flicker of life on the man’s gaze is enough to almost stop Tony’s heart with grief.

“Isn’t it always?” Yinsen says, voice scratchy, and something inside Tony rips in half. Beck smiles, raises the gun, and fires it at Yinsen without blinking, without breaking eye contact with Tony.

Tony opens his mouth to say something, but the words get cut off as the world around him folds in on itself, image warping and shifting and he’s falling again, down and down and down and he can feel the wind ripping at his hair and clothes, knocking him back and forth through the air as he falls. All he can see is Yinsen’s face, eyes blank, glasses flecked with blood as he stood there, own hands dripping.

“Tragic, isn’t it?” A voice says distantly as Tony plummets downwards, each breath ripped out of his body with the force of the fall. “How sometimes the world must stop turning for others in order for it to keep turning for you.”

Tony reaches out to grab onto something, stop him from fucking falling so he can breathe and think and focus and heknow this isn’t real; he knows this is a vision and he’s still in the room, zip-tied to the chair, sedentary and unmoving but he can’t wipe the smell of saltwater and blood from his nose and his chest is tightening and all he can fucking see is Yinsen.

“But that’s just how things are for you, hm, Tony?” Beck says into the darkness. “Sacrifice after sacrifice from others for your own benefit. Doesn’t ever get tiring playing the Merchant of Death?”

And then Tony hits solid ground in a wave of sand and dirt, coughing as it fills his nose and eyes. He rolls onto his back and forces breaths out in between his teeth, the tightness in his chest increasing with each movement. Above him, the sky is suddenly bright blue and cloudless. The sun is somewhere behind him, beating down on his neck, and he can hear the sounds of yelling in the distance.

“What the -” Tony mutters, clawing himself to his feet. He has three seconds to look around - barely able to catch a glimpse of the rolling sand dunes or tiny swarming pinpricks at the bottom of the hill he’s handed on that must be people - before something behind him explodes, sending him flying down the hill, air slammed out of is body. He hits the bottom of the dune with a grunt, and suddenly it’s like someone flipped a switch and turned the sound on.

The noise of gunfire and shells exploding is deafening. He barely has time to duck as something dark and heavy flies just over his shoulder, exploding in the sand behind him and sending him flying. He can hear voices - deep and angry and sharp as they spit out commands and orders above the steady stream of gunfire - and see people running around, ducking out of the way as more things around them explode, sending plumes of sand and shrapnel into the sky.

Tony presses himself up against the sand dune and sits there, knees tucked into his chest, shoulders heaving as he fights to get his breath under control. It’s the fucking Humvee all over again; it’s the Humvee and there’s soldiers - some of them barely over eighteen; they’re still _kids_ \- swarming around him, telling him to stay down, telling them they’ve got it covered. They’re all fighting for their lives and Tony sits there, paralyzed now, unable to move to help as something explodes in the sky, sending a cloud of orange and grey shooting outwards before dropping into the middle of the fight with a soft _thud_. Tony’s too far to see it, but a part of him already knows who’s name is going to be written on the side.

“Tones?”

Tony twists around, his throat sealing shut at the sound of that familiar voice. He doesn’t want to see him, he doesn’t want to look, he knows everyone here is going to die - if not because of the bomb that’s been dropped then because of the hundreds more that will come because of him - and he can’t see it, he can’t see _him,_ not him, not -

But his head turns anyways, and a sob starts to build in the center of his chest.

“Rhodey?” Tony whispers.

His friend, his best friend stands there, helmet hanging loosely from his fingers, brows knitted together in an expression of almost gentle confusion. The man frowns, looking down at his chest, before back up at Tony.

Rhodey looks terrified. More terrified than Tony’s ever seen him; more terrified than Tony ever wanted to see him. There’s spots of blood blooming on his chest, darkening his uniform, spreading slowly outwards.

“Tony?” Rhodey says again, blinking slowly. His eyes are starting to glass over. Tony can them shining as Rhodey presses his hand against his chest, knuckles starting to glint as the blood seeps through, wetting his hand. “Tony, was this - was this _you?”_

Despite the heat, Tony’s starting to shiver, jaw locking with fear. “No - _no_ , Rhodey, no, I would never - c’mon, man, c’mere, we gotta - gotta get you help - _c’mere_ , buddy, ‘s gonna be okay, just gotta - gotta get you some -”

“I don’t want to die, Tony.”

Rhodey’s voice is shaking and the backs of Tony’s eyes are starting to burn and he _can’t fucking move_ , can’t reach out and grab his friend, help him, do anything.

“You’re not going to die,” Tony says fiercely, straining to stand up, fighting back against whatever invisible bonds are keeping him pressed up against the sand - _fuck_ , he needs to move, he needs to get up _now;_ Rhodey is _dying._ “Rhodes, you’re not gonna die, I’m not gonna let you die, okay? Just - come _here_ -”

Something underneath him shifts a little and, suddenly, Tony starts sinking, the sand underneath him giving out. His hands scrabble desperately against the ground, looking for a hold to grab onto as he sinks further and faster, Rhodey’s terror-stricken face slowly fading out of view as the ground collapses back on top of him and he starts to fall through the blackness again.

“It was his legs, wasn’t it?” Beck’s voice says calmly in his ear as he plummets. “A soldier for over a decade, and you were the one to get him knocked out of the sky, hm? Doesn’t that make you think? Doesn’t that make you _care?”_

 _I care, I care, I fucking care_ -

“You think,” Beck says, voice whipping around Tony as he turns over and over in the darkness. “That you’ve been absolved. You think you can build him a new set of les and everything is fine. You think you can pay people money to make you _innocent_. How many soldiers have your weapons killed, Stark? How many lives have your choices claimed?”

He hits the ground again, grunting as the collision rips the air from his lungs. The surface underneath his palms feels rough and jagged - _concrete_ , he has just enough time to realize before the floor around him creaks, then splits open as he’s shot through it and onto another level of the same substance. There’s dust in his mouth and eyes, burning at the back of his throat, and he can feel pieces of concrete from the destroyed floor digging into his shoulders and neck. His brain is foggy with pain, too dazed to even focus on the fact that this isn’t real, that _Tony knows this isn’t real_.

“You think your change of heart makes you _guiltless_ ,” Beck’s voice snarls somewhere above him, and Tony shakes his head, neck screaming in protest. 

“I - don’t -” Tony hisses out, trying to haul himself upwards. 

He’s smashed through the floor again, shards of concrete whipping past his face, slicing up his cheeks and neck as Beck’s voice continues. “You think you own the world now! Tony Stark - _Iron Man_ . The world’s most _ardent defender._ You have nearly destroyed it a hundred times over, and you still think you - _you_ \- are fit to _rule it_.”

“I don’t think -” he tries before cutting off as something invisible wraps around his chest and neck squeezing. Before he can do anything else, he feels the invisible force lift him off the ground and fling him to the side, his body crashing through what feels like layer after layer of concrete until all he can do is close his eyes against each collision, trying and probably failing not to cry out.

The scene shifts again as he smashes into the floor, the force of the collision sending wood splintering everywhere. Gasping - and desperately trying to ignore the fact that the whole right side of his body feels like it’s been dry-frozen - Tony pulls himself to his feet with his good hand and looks around. It’s the Avengers Compound. The old version - how it was before that party where -

_Oh, fuck._

The wall in front of him crashes open and Tony staggers back, something hot rising in the back of his throat as a pair of glinting white eyes swing into view, sparks flying from them.

“How about Ultron?” says a voice from behind him. Tony spins and jerks back as another broken-up Ultron steps into view, wires swinging from it’s half-assembled face, eyes flashing. “Or was that just you trying to satisfy your ego, too?”

The Ultron bots are starting to speak - low, unintelligible mumbles coming from their mouths - and the noise sends a chill so strong Tony’s body jerks with the force of it running through him. He blinks once and suddenly there’s wind in his hair, the chalky taste of dust on his tongue, anger and terror and guilt burning him up from the inside out as Friday’s calm voice says the words _global extinction_ in his ear.

Tony turns on his heels, making a beeline for the stairs. His hand is just closing around the banister, shifting the weight from his bad side onto the metal support beam when a groan cuts through the house as the floor underneath him opens up, launching him though the ground and collapsing in a heap in the next scene.

It’s cold again - a different kind of cold to Afghanistan. This one is searing, slamming into him in a wave instead of creeping into his body and winding around the very atoms of his bones. Tony pushes himself up, blinking what he hopes is not blood out of his eyes and turns, collapsing back against the ground with a grunt. His hands are wet from where they rested against the ground - wet and cold, palms already going stark-white. He can hear wind blowing in the background, see it turning piles of snow over from between the gaps in the concrete pillars that enclose the space.

Siberia. Tony presses his freezing palms into his eyes and forces an exhale out. This isn’t real, this isn’t real, _this isn’t real._ He’s not here. This is fake - an illusion. Rhodey is alive. He’s not in Siberia. He’s _not_ \- _nothing_ is going to -

A _clang_ sounds from somewhere in front of him and Tony looks him, heart going still at the sight of who it is.

Steve Rogers, blood dripping from his nose and cheek, shield cracked in half just like it was in his vision, just like it was at the second fight on Titan, stands on the other end of the room. His helmet is on, expression unreadable, jaw set with a sort of resolve that makes Tony’s stomach harden.

“Steve,” Tony says slowly, shifting back as the man drops the shield on the ground and starts advancing forward. “Steve, listen - hey, _Steve_ -”

“No, _you_ listen,” Steve says, stopping a foot in front of him. The voice coming from his mouth isn’t his - it’s Beck’s - and that horrifies Tony on a whole new level. “You, Tony Stark, are a curse. You have these _half-baked_ notions of superiority, of _goodness_ . You call yourself a savior - the famed _Iron Man_ . You call yourself a _hero_ as you don’t think twice about the lives you ruin -”

“You were going to kill people, Beck. You were going to take _my idea_ and _weaponize it_ and use it to kill thousands of _innocent people_.”

Steve snarls, and Tony scrambles back, elbows brushing against piles of snow as he creeps over towards one of the support pillars. Steve mirrors his every movement, taking two steps for each inch of progress Tony makes, and fear so strong he can almost taste it slams right into Tony’s chest.

_This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real -_

“And you’re one to talk about death? About killing - the deaths _I_ had planned were for a _cause_. They were for the greater good - not that _you_ know anything about that. You - you are a mass murderer, Tony. Sokovia, New York, the decimation - all of that is on _you_ and it was for _nothing_ except an ego trip.”

“I didn’t -”

“You carry death around with you like a _change purse_ ,” Steve says in Beck’s voice, eyes blank. “And you have the audacity to lecture _me_ about it.”

Tony moves further back, back scraping against the stone and ice as his fingers try an fail to find some sort of grip, something to get him to his feet so he can take off again and break this fucking vision up. The same, icy hot feeling he’d gotten in Siberia all those years ago is flooding back into him, filling up his lungs slowly until all he can see is Steve’s blank, bloodied face and all he can think is _he’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me, he’s going to bring that shield down and kill me._

“It’s inescapable,” says Beck as Steve stops in front of him, crouching down. He tips his head to the side, eyes glinting in the shadows his helmet casts, and reaches out to Tony, hand closing around the collar of his shirt.

“Please,” whispers Tony. He can’t breathe. He can’t do this again; he can’t live this moment with Steve again - anything but that. “Steve, hey, buddy. Steve, _please_ -”

Steve doesn’t blink. His eyes glint blue, then green - _how nice to find a flaw_ \- as he raises his fist.

“Please.” Tony shakes his head. His throat is burning. “Steve, please. You don’t want to kill me, please, you don’t.”

Steve pauses, hand still raised, and blinks. Then smiles, the expression cold and jagged on his face. 

_“On va voir,”_ the man - his _friend_ \- says in his real voice, and then brings his fist crashing down on Tony’s jaw.

The impact of the punch sends his head crashing into the floor, and then he just keeps going, the scene around him dissolving into blackness as Tony starts falling again, hands grabbing uselessly at the air like it will do anything. 

The images - illusions; it’s not real, none of this is real - start to come to him in flashes. The first one has him standing on the sidewalk of Park Avenue as the hole in the sky grows bigger and bigger and bigger. Another flash and he’s half in the bushes surrounding someone’s lawn - Harley’s; this is harley’s house and Harley’s lawn - watching in silent horror as a man stands over the boy yelling, shotgun cocked in one hand, beer can in the other. Tony reaches out to do something - to fucking _help_ \- and the picture changes just as a shot rings out. He’s in a dockyard this time, watching silently as Pepper falls from the crane over and over again, the flames surging up to meet her as she disappears from his view on loop. Another flash and he’s in a parking garage, concrete and broken pipes and water surrounding him, stuck motionless as the terrified screams from someone - his kid; _Peter_ \- start up, raw and shaky and cracking with each word. Another flash, and he’s staring down Thanos as the Titan snaps for the second time. Tony doesn’t have the stones, and he watches as everyone around him slowly starts to fade away, Pepper’s wide, terrified eyes the last thing he sees before the picture disappears again with another flash. Now he’s standing on a train platform, watching as the black-clad figure staggers back, hands raised to fend off the slowly approaching figure of Beck in a CGI suit. Before Tony can do anything - because he knows; he knows what’s going to happen now - something blasts in the distance and Peter has just enough time to turn and face the noise before the train comes out of seemingly nowhere, colliding with Peter’s body with a sick _crunch_. 

Another flash and suddenly he’s in a room very much like the one he woke up in, except this time he’s on the other side of the one-way mirror, looking in with horror at the impossibly small, impossibly fragile figure of Morgan tied up to one of the chairs. Her head is lolling to the side. Tony can see tear tracks cutting through the dirt coating her face. There’s blood on the corner of her mouth, and something silent and indescribable opens up inside of Tony, sucking him in and sending him plummeting down again; down and down and down until his vision starts to slowly fade away and the world around him starts to disappear and then -

And then his whole body jerks as the room - the one he woke up in - slams back down around him. The lights are back, the chill is back, the blank beige walls are back.

Tony gasps, whole body shaking. He closes his eyes and focuses on bringing his breathing back to normal, focuses on getting his head to stop spinning and the room around him to settle into focus.

His wrists are burning now. His hands feel wet and the image of Yinsen’s empty face while he looked on, own hands dripping with blood float back to him, and Tony has to clamp his jaw down around the surge of nausea that washes through him.

It’s not real. None of that was real. None of that just happened.

_Maybe this isn’t real, too._

Tony lets his head drop against his chest and just sits there, panting. He squeezes his eyes shut against the pounding in his head that’s picked up, but all he can see when he does is Yinsen and Rhodey and the train and Harley’s father and Pepper falling and Morgan in the chair, so he opens them back up again. The floor beneath his feet swims a little.

“Well, now that was fun, wasn’t it?” 

Tony flinches as Beck’s vice fulls the tight room and, for a long, horrible second, Tony’s convinces the floor underneath him is going to open up once more and he;s going to have to do all that again, but the room around him stays still.

“Fuck - _off_ _,”_ Tony wheezes to the ground. Exhaustion is starting to claw at the edges of his vision. He’s so fucking tired. 

“Sure.” Beck says easily. “See you soon, Tony.”

A blast of static sounds around the room that Tony can’t even bring himself to flinch at, and then everything’s quiet. Quiet enough to pick up on a faint hum echoing around the room, quiet enough for Tony’s breathing to sound like the loudest sound in the world, quiet enough for him to hear each of his heartbeats perfectly.

Tony exhales again, long and slow. The part of his shirt his chin is touching is soaked with sweat. His stomach feels like it left his body a long time ago, and his head is pounding so hard he can barely see straight. 

_And I thought waterboarding was fucking bad_ , Tony thinks. He almost laughs at that, too, if it weren’t for the fact that it wasn't remotely funny and more than a little true. Everything that happened in Afghanistan was horrific on a scale he’d never dealt with before, but _that_ \- everything that just happened - blew that scale out of the fucking _water_.

Tony groans, squeezing his eyes shut. 

He has to fucking get out of here. _Now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter or, as i like to call it, Senseless Whumping Of Tony Stark part 2342829....god bless OK this one is kind of a doozy idk if any of the illusions make sense ThEYRE SO HARD TO WRITE COHERENTLY it took me like 5 hours .....Agh! also me peppering in civil war angst bc I can And I Want To....ok also check my other fics posted new chapters for them a sec ago!! ALSO just reread this chap god damn i am so sorry tony

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I've Got Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20344069) by [Mangocat98](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangocat98/pseuds/Mangocat98)




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